If At First You Don't Succeed
by WittyRejoinder
Summary: In which I am unceremoniously thrust into the life of Elena Gilbert and decide to do something about it, more or less. Of course, things are rarely as simple as that. SI/OC-Insert. Eventual AU.
1. PILOT

_Pilot_

I stared down at the book open in my hands in shock. There was a single entry on the page, ink still drying, one that simultaneously put chills down my spine and made me want to roll my eyes at the dramatic irony.

_Dear diary, _

_ Today will be different. It has to be. I will smile and it will be believable. My smile will say, "I'm fine. Thank you! Yes, I feel much better!" I will no longer be the sad little girl who lost her parents. I will start fresh. Be someone new. It's the only way I'll make it through._

I would like to say I actually did take the moment to appreciate the dramatic irony of the situation, but I didn't. No, I read the diary entry nearly six times, staring at it in horrified disbelief, and then dropped it as if it had burned me. Aside from the fact that I was really, _really_ freaked out, though, I did manage to keep myself moderately composed enough to look about the room to try to figure out where I was.

It wasn't until I caught sight of the mirror that I screamed.

Now trust me, when I say screamed, I don't mean let-out-a-little-startled-yelp-and-fell-over. I mean holy-fucking-shit-what-the-fuck-shrieking-my-lungs-out-in-horror-and-crashing-back-onto-the-bed screaming. Screaming like I was being bloody murdered, which, in hindsight, was bound to draw some attention.

"Elena! Are you alright?" A blonde woman cried out as she burst into the room, eyes frantic.

Startled, I took advantage of the fact that I had fallen back onto my bed in my terror and confusion to smile sheepishly at her and said, "I'm sorry, I…I dozed off. I had a nightmare."

"Oh," the woman said, looking at me pityingly. "Do you want to talk about it?"

I shook my head because quite frankly, all I wanted was to be alone to figure out what the hell was going on. She shot me a hesitant look before cheerfully informing me that she was right downstairs if I needed her and that I should hurry up if I didn't want to be late.

I stepped towards the mirror again, and found myself trembling. There, instead of _my _face, the face that I had grown up with, was the face of Elena Gilbert. Like, Elena-from-a-programme-on-telly-bloody-Gilbert. And, unless I was very, _very_ mistaken, it was Elena as she first appeared in the very first episode of series one.

"Fuck."

I spent a few more minutes swearing and just generally going mad and emerged from Elena's room a few minutes later in a state of stunned stupidity. I didn't dare change a thing and was quite frankly frightened to even do something so simple as to wash my face for fear of ruining her make-up or something. Would changing her appearance alter the story, I mused vaguely as I made my way to the kitchen, which I was rather sure had been her next stop.

The blonde woman I realized with a jolt was Elena's Aunt Jenna smiled brightly at me as I walked in, standing near the fridge, which she opened and then turned away from with a sunny smile.

"Toast!" She called enticingly, the shadow of subdued laughter in her face. "I can make toast!"

I couldn't remember what it was Elena said, so I just nodded my head and added as an after thought, "Do we have any tea…?"

She blinked at me, tilting her head to the side.

"I don't think so? We can pick some up later at the grocery store if you want. I didn't know you drank tea." She said, seemingly perplexed and amused all at once, and then nodded to something behind me. "There's coffee if you want."

Fair enough, I thought, and moved to pour myself some.

"Thanks, Aunt Jenna," I said, hopefully not _too_ awkwardly, though considering I was impersonating a fictional character (and doing a terrible job of it) I didn't precisely have my hopes up. I had barely set it down when another hand picked it up and I started, nearly spilling my coffee all over Elena's nice clothes.

"Whoa, easy there, Elena." The boy who'd picked up the coffee pot said, and I mumbled some sort of agreement to him, berating myself mentally for not realizing that of course Elena's brother would be in her house with her aunt too.

He said something to Jenna which I pretty much missed, and then she walked to one side of the kitchen, grabbed something I didn't quite see, and then held it out to the two of us and said in a very parental tone, "Lunch money?"

Jeremy took it and pocketed it and I did the same.

"A number two pencil?" Jenna asked aloud, and I wondered briefly, alarmed, if she had been directing that statement to me or not and then decided not to worry about it. I missed most of the remainder of the conversation and my distraction much have been obvious because as I was walking out the door, Elena's aunt pulled me aside.

"Elena, are you sure you're all right?" She asked, frowning slightly.

Seeking to reassure her, I nodded and plastered my signature crooked grin on my face…which I just now realized might look weird on Elena, who as far as I know doesn't make such an expression. Hmm.

"I'm fine," I said, feeling a touch amused at taking the words from the diary entry, "I just didn't sleep very well last night."

She didn't look convinced, but I let my expression soften a little to a more sincere hopefully Elena-like smile.

"It's okay. I think…No, I know," I started encouragingly, "that yes, I feel much better!"

"That's wonderful, Elena," she returned, surprised, I think, and quite pleased.

I pecked her on the cheek.

"I woke up today and thought to myself, today's going to be different. But it'll only be different if I put in the effort, right?"

She started to nod and then caught sight of the clock behind me.

"Crap! I should have left minutes ago!" She exclaimed, grabbing her bag and pushing past me gently. "Have a good day!"

I waved after her and watched her leave, then realized suddenly that I had no clue where Elena's brother had gone and how I was supposed to get to school.

"Bugger," I said as I glanced around the yard, wondering a.) if the school was within walking distance and b.) which direction it was in if it was.

"Elena!" Called a woman's voice from a light blue Prius as it rolled to a stop in front of the house. A girl waved at me from the driver's seat, and, realizing I had found my ride, I quickly made my way over to her.

I got in the car and we made small talk most of the way there, until the girl I now knew was Bonnie said something that interested me.

"So, Grams is telling me I'm psychic," Bonnie began, an amused, skeptical look on her face. I nearly choked on the lungful of air I had been taking in.

I hid it well, I supposed, because she went right on as if she hadn't noticed and I listened, laughed here and there, nodded when necessary and then rather dramatically asked her what the future held in store for me. She opened her mouth to speak and then something crashed into the windshield.

"BLOODY HELL!" I shrieked as Bonnie swerved. "WHAT THE BLAZES WAS THAT ALL ABOUT?"

Both of us were taking short, panicky breaths of air when the car came to a stop and I remembered what, precisely, the mysterious had been.

"I think it was a bird," I said after a minute, gently touching Bonnie's shoulder in a gesture of comfort. "Are you okay? That was scary as anything!"

"Yeah," she breathed after a moment. "Sorry, I don't even know where it came from. Are _you _okay, Elena?"

I murmured an assent, my eyes fixed on where I imagined, exactly, the bird had struck the windshield. When I glanced back at her, I was surprised to see her looking at me with a smile full of pride. I blinked.

"What?" I asked unsurely, and her smile widened.

"You're…you're not freaking out, Elena." She stated gently, happily. I bit back an excuse and instead nodded weakly. Of course Elena would have been freaking out, she was in the car when her parents were killed in the accident.

I said something about moving on and told Bonnie quietly that she had been a great source of strength to me and that I very much appreciated her sensitivity and all that and tears welled up in her eyes and she grinned wider and held my hand for a moment before predicting, essentially, that we were going to have a wonderful year and that I would be very happy.

I had to fight very, _very_ hard to choke back a laugh.

School, when we got there, started with some boy-watching, an awkward run-in with Matt, Elena's ex, and an awkward-for-me-in-Elena's-body run in with Caroline, who bombarded me with sincere concern and whatnot. Oh, and Bonny and I checked out Stefan's leather-clad back and I made an inappropriate comment about "dat ass" that had us both dissolve into giggles and then rolled my eyes and informed her that I was only kidding and that while he had a very nice jacket, the back of him wasn't my type.

"Please be hot," Bonne prayed with a teasing grin on her face, making me roll my eyes.

I opened my mouth offer a sarcastic remark and ended up biting my tongue as someone bumped into me and kept walking without so much as an apology and left me hurriedly scooping my things off the floor.

The only thing missing was my pen, and I scanned the floor with sharp, unforgiving eyes, determined to find it because it was the only pen out of all of Elena's that I found worth using. I've always been very fussy about my writing and art supplies…

"Got you, you wee beast!" I growled, and I am ashamed to say I actually lunged towards where it had been kicked to Bonnie's left, putting me right out of the view of the open door Bonnie was standing in. I snatched Elena's now beloved Pilot G-2 up and cackled as I straightened up and turned around to get back to Bonnie.

I hadn't been paying attention, and I paid for it. I bumped right into Stefan as he attempted to squeeze past Bonnie on his way out of the office and my pen was knocked clean out of my hands. My mouth opened in horror.

"Er, sorry about that," I excused, searching frantically for where my pen might have fallen in my peripheral vision. "Really sorry. I didn't see you there."

He said something in reply, but I was preoccupied with the idea of having to go through an entire day in high school without a pen worthy of doodling with and just smiled sincerely at him and nodded at whatever it was that he said.

"Are you looking for this?" He asked me, and that did catch my attention, and my head snapped up towards the object in his hand with a looked of bewildered delight.

"Yes," I said, and took it from his hands gratefully. "Thank you!"

He looked at me as if he wanted to say more but hesitated, so I just tucked the pen into the convenient inside pocket of my leather jacket and said cheerio politely and made my way back to Bonnie victoriously.

"I found it!"

She was watching me with a look of disbelief, but I was happy and apparently it was contagious because she ended up shaking her head indulgently at me and together we headed off to class, which I will admit, I dreaded.

In history, we talked about the American Civil War, which was interesting enough, although the teacher was rather lackluster and no where near as interesting as my da had been when he spoke of it. My da had been very well versed in history as it had been his favorite subject in school, and I took after him in that aspect, though I was better at English.

Bonnie texted me about Stefan staring at me, at least I presumed it was Stefan. I decided not to get into all that and texted her back, changing the subject, and we spent the class chatting. I found the teacher to be fairly oblivious because he didn't notice, and used what extra time I had to draw a lovely floral sort of frame on a piece of paper which I proceeded to fill in with a lovely little sketch of a fairy woman of sorts.

I made a mental note to buy more black ink pens and some sort of variety pack in color.

I deliberately did not take notice of Stefan apparently taking notice of me, and the rest of the day was even less eventful and served only to remind me of how much I preferred uni, hated maths, and that, despite Elena being an active girl, my mind or spirit in her body was enough to rob her of any athleticism she might have had before me. Oops.

I found out I had to make my own way home, which was an absolute nightmare that ended up with me cutting through the cemetery on my way to God knows where, although in the end I figured I try to locate Elena's parents' graves, pay my respects, and then hang around until I could get Elena's aunt Jenna to pick me up.

So, I sat down, pulled out Elena's school notebook which I had commandeered for my own use, and decided to draw some trees or perhaps write a poem. Needless to say, I didn't get that far. Quite frankly, the crow should have been a clue, but I was distracted and I didn't realize I was in what I had privately begun to label as a "plot point" until the fog literally started rolling in.

Honestly, I wasn't really in the mood and ended up rolling my eyes and putting a hand on my hip sassily when the crow started squawking at me.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. Quoth the raven and all that. I hate to break it to you, love, but despite the fact that I was, in fact, pondering, I am neither weak nor weary, and it's the middle of the bloody day, not a midnight dreary, so kindly shunt off 'my' parents' graves, yeah?"

The crow stopped cawing at me for a moment before starting up again so I irritably shoved my (Elena's) things into my (Elena's) bag and stalked off, waving the smoke away from my face thanking every greater power on the planet that Elena's body hadn't inherited my asthma as well as my athletic incompetence.

Speaking of athletic incompetence, I fell flat on my face nearly as soon as I had made it out of the fog, scraping my palms and possibly putting a tear in the left knee of Elena's jeans. Standing and dusting myself off, disgruntled and darkly muttering, I was met with the sudden sight of Salvatore. Er, Stefan. Er, no, I didn't know his name yet.

"Are you alright?" He asked after a moment, tearing his gaze from my hands. I took a half-step back, plastering a grin on my face.

"You keep catching me at my best today, don't you?" I joked uncomfortably, and then, before he could answer that, said, "Yes, I'm fine. I just had a little disagreement with a raven, you know, and the weird disco fog that popped up was a bit stifling so I wasn't watching where I was going and yeah. I'm a bit clumsy at times."

The corner of his mouth twitched in what I hoped was amusement and he opened his mouth to speak but I cut him off hurriedly with a friendly, "So! Are you visiting someone?"

I was absolutely, utterly determined that there would be no romance until Elena got her body back. I was in no way, shape or form going to permit myself to be entangled in that god-forsaken mess, and there was no way on earth I was going to let this chance meeting turn into a romantic-instrumental-soundtrack, soft-lighting-and-natural-ambience sort of conversation. No. Bloody. Way.

"Yeah," he said with a half-smile, "and you?"

I nodded cheerfully and then realized that was incredibly suspicious and let my smile dim down to a more appropriately subdued look.

"Yeah, I am. My parents. They…they recently passed away."

He murmured some condolences which I accepted with a sad smile and passed over in favor of clearing my throat and changing the subject. "Well," I said in a quite amiable tone, "I've kept you long enough, and I probably look a terrible fright and need to get myself all fit and polished for girls' night tonight, so I'll see you in school tomorrow, alright?"

He nodded, looking rather amused, and then I went on my merry way. Even better, as soon as I'd made it out of the cemetery, my aunt called and asked me if I wanted a ride home. I could have cried, and resolved to program Elena's address into her phone so that I could get directions back from wherever I might go.

My joyous mood died when I realized that my notebook, with all of my little doodles and poems and the short story I wrote while in French, was missing from my bag, probably lying back at the cemetery, abandoned. The notebook which was literally the only thing I had that was mine, (it was still Elena's, but since she hadn't written in it yet, I'm claiming it as mine while I'm here), was gone.

I was so upset I contemplated skipping out on going to the Grill to meet Bonnie.

"Aunt Jenna!" I called with a tremulous quality to my voice that must have alarmed her because she came barreling down the stairs and looked at me worriedly.

"Elena, what happened?"

I blinked and then realized that there were tears spilling onto my cheeks. Ashamed, I wiped them away, turning back to face Elena's aunt with an apologetic expression.

"Sorry, it's just that I think I left my notebook at the cemetery and it's…it's really important to me. I was wondering if maybe you could give me a ride there so I can look for it, I'll be quick, I promise, it's just that…"

"Sure," she said hurriedly, her face sympathetic. "Let me just get a coat on, okay?"

I was about to nod in the affirmative when the doorbell rang.

"I'll get it," I said, since I was practically there and was confident I recognized enough characters from the show to be able to recognize anyone Elena would if they came to the door. I unlocked it and opened it wide while tucking an irritating, perpetually loose strand of hair behind my ear and froze.

"Hi," Stefan said with a soft, charming smile as I stared at him, a little confused. Did this happen in the first episode? I couldn't remember. I sincerely hoped it had, because otherwise I must have done something terribly wrong, more wrong than all of my other faux pas today.

"Hi!" I chirped, looking at him curiously, wondering if my heart was pounding and hoping that if it was he'd think it was because I had some sort of crush on him rather than because I was terrified of screwing the plot over completely.

"I," he started, and it's hilarious, but I think he might have actually been a bit unnerved by my unperturbed staring. Imagine it! A vampire unnerved by a weak little human girl and her big, brown doe eyes. "I came here to bring you this. You dropped it earlier."

My jaw dropped as he held out my notebook, which I accepted, hugging it to my chest.

"Thank you!" I exclaimed, blinking back the sudden, mild onset of fresh tears, which made him frown, an almost surprised look on his face.

"Were you…crying?" He asked softly, almost in surprise, slipping his hands into his jacket pockets in a very casual move. I opened my mouth to say something, anything, and then sighed in resignation and decided to tell him the truth.

"I thought I'd lost it." I explained, turning my burning face away. "I mean, I know it's just a cheap notebook and I can get another for less than a dollar, but…thoughts are precious things, you know? They're the product of the self, the only proof we have that the self exists and I feel like I woke up as a different person today and the only proof of who I am now is in this flimsy, dime-a-dozen notebook."

I dared to glance back at him and found him watching me curiously.

"Sorry about that," I said immediately, uncomfortable with his weird staring, "I didn't mean to get all Descartes on you."

"You don't have to apologize," he said with a ghost of a smile on his face. "You should never apologize for your thoughts. Your thoughts define you as your own person, they separate you as an individual from the masses. I didn't read from it, you know. Your book."

For some reason, I believed him. "Thank you," I said as sincerely as I could without letting the atmosphere plummet into territory I didn't want it to go to. As an after thought, and because I thought it would be really rude to leave him standing there but didn't want to invite him in, I decided to invite him to hang out with Bonnie and I.

"Hey, are you doing anything right now?" I asked, hopefully not too intrusively.

He shook his head, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Just dropping off your notebook," he said easily, "but after this, no."

"If you want you can come chill with Bonnie and I at the Grill. It's a pretty popular hang-out place and you might meet some new mates while you're out," I said, ending my little spiel with a winning, encouraging grin.

"I'd like that." He answered, and I nodded, turning in towards the house to find Jenna standing off to the side giving me a silent thumbs up, having apparently listened to the entire conversation. She winked, and I rolled my eyes, fighting a smile.

"Hey, Aunt Jen," I said, as if she weren't shooing me out the door from around the corner, "Guess what? My friend found my notebook and brought it back to me!"

She made a face at me and then pretended she hadn't been eavesdropping, rounding the corner with a smile. "Did you? That's great, Elena. Are you going to head out, then?" She asked nicely, and I nodded an affirmative.

"Have fun, then, and try not to get home too late," she said, attempting at sternness and overall failing.

"I will," I promised, wanting some time to myself before I inevitably went to bed anyway.

It wasn't until we were walking away that Stefan said, well, asked, really: "Friend?"

I blinked.

"Of course," I said in amusement. And then added as an afterthought, "I'm Elena, by the way. Elena Gilbert. But…I'd rather you just called me Lena. Elena sounds a bit…not me."

I definitely wasn't kidding there, I thought with a mental wince.

"I'm Stefan, Stefan Salvatore."

For some reason, the way he looked at me as he said it made me incredibly uneasy, but it was too late for take-backs. For better or for worse, we were on our way to the Grill together, as friends.

_To be continued in Pilot II._


	2. PILOT II

_Pilot II_

No one really noticed us when we walked into the Grill, which quite frankly, after a harrowing number of people came forward to express their sympathy to me over the death of Elena's parents, I was grateful for. At least, no one really noticed us until Elena's ex, Matt, looked over and saw us and then came over and did the whole sizing-each-other-up thing with Stefan which I found utterly ridiculous and unnecessary.

Well, I'm pretty sure they would have called it "introducing themselves" but…they weren't fooling no one, mate. Matt and I exchanged an awkward hello, and we made it to the table Bonnie was saving for us without further incident.

Then it was Bonnie, Caroline, Stefan and I, and Elena's friends were full of questions.

"So Stefan, if you're new then you don't know about the party tomorrow," Caroline said suddenly, causing my head snap up in hardly concealed horror.

"It's a back to school thing at the Falls," Bonnie explained, and just as I was making a mental note to, well, avoid it at all costs, Stefan asked me if I was going.

"Of course she is," Bonnie said matter-of-factly and I could literally feel what choice I might have had in the matter slipping right through my fingers.

I went home with a heavy heart and hoped that my party experience, (which could be called minimal by a kind person and laughable by an honest one), would be enough to at least let me fake being the generally sociable Elena for one night.

School the next day was boring, and I rapidly realized I was going to have to do something about being in French class because I was utterly doomed to fail it. Oh, and I realized that my history teacher, whose name I believe was Mr. Tanner, was an absolute twat and I hated him. How long until Alaric would get here, again?

But no, really, our teacher was an insufferable prat, I swear, he was completely out of line referencing Elena's parents' deaths like that. If they had been my parents, I would have knocked him flat on his bottom for his incivility and spent the rest of the year hating him.

As it was, watching Stefan hand him his arse on a platter was priceless.

All in all, it was a typical high school day, and the party was a typical high school party, at least until I handed Bonnie a bottle of bevvy and she went all Professor Trelawney on me and told me that when she touched me, she saw a crow. Even though I vaguely remembered that happening, it was still strange as anything and rather creepy. I distracted her by quoting _The Raven_ some more and dancing around like a loon until she couldn't help but laugh.

Mind you, I'm pretty sure the laughing was because Stefan had been standing behind me for something close to a minute as I made a fool of myself for her, but I digress.

I backed right into him and whipped around, startled, and possibly ready for a fist fight. He raised an eyebrow at my reaction but I waved it off with a cheesy grin.

"Can't be too careful, you know. Not with looks like these!" I excused with an exaggerated wink, although, quite frankly, it was a rather true statement, if not for the reasons I let him believe I said it. Looking like the doppelganger was serious business, after all. Well, _being_ the doppelganger. Whatever. "Anyway, you made it!"

I turned around to include Bonnie but she had rather conveniently disappeared. I frowned. "Oh, she's…she left me!" I complained, trying not to pout. I was actually a little uncomfortable without her there, she was my anchor in social situations, she made me feel at ease even though I was so entirely out of place.

"I'm still here," Stefan said with a grin, and I loosened up a bit. Or maybe that was all the mixers I'd tossed back already. I missed being twenty-three. Back home, you could buy your own drink at eighteen. Here, I wasn't even that and I'd have to wait until I was twenty-one.

"Do you fancy a stroll?" I asked suddenly, glancing around at the drinking teenagers around us. "Don't know if you've noticed, but these things aren't really my…thing."

I'd seen a little bridge that had been decorated with lights that seemed like a nice, quiet place to have a drink. I grabbed him a beer out of a cooler since I noticed his hands were empty and we were on our way.

We chatted for a few minutes about simple things like likes and dislikes…he seemed to be surprised that I was as well-read as I am, so we talked about a few books we'd both read and our impressions of them. Then, we talked about friends and the conversation strayed into incredibly awkward and uncomfortable territory when he mentioned that Matt was watching us.

It got worse when I explained that he was Elena's (my, in the conversation) ex and that he and Elena (we) had broken things off because the feeling wasn't all there and it went downhill from there when Stefan found the word I was rather trying to avoid and clarified that it wasn't _passionate_ and ugh. Luckily, right after that he had some odd vampire issue and went off somewhere, leaving me with the romance plot heebie-jeebies, but I digress.

Unfortunately, my luck took its own turn and not for the better and I had an awkward conversation with Matt which left me horrified and absolutely white in the face because quite frankly I'm terrified of commitment of any kind and he had essentially told me he wanted to pursue Elena (and by extension during my tenure in her body, _me_) with romantic intention.

There was another, startling revelation that night which wasn't so much a revelation as much as an Elena-knew-that-but-I-didn't-know-that-and-now-I-have-to-fix-it thing in that Jeremy got drunk and suddenly it all came back to me and I remembered he was going through his stint on drugs and I really needed to do something about that before it got worse…So I went after him and he tripped on Vicki's body and stuff went to hell from there.

I watched Matt climb into the back of the ambulance to be with his sister standing next to Bonnie, who was deeply unsettled by what had happened and the feeling it gave her, and then excused myself to go after Elena's brother.

I found him drinking, and stopped. I didn't know what to say. He wasn't my brother, he wasn't anyone I knew, and yet…I felt responsibility towards him, because I did know him, in a roundabout way, and I had taken his big sister's place and I owed it to him to be there.

"Jeremy, I'm so sorry," I cried softly as I flung my arms around his neck.

"Elena, what the hell?" he demanded, taken aback. "Are you drunk?"

I shook my head, burying Elena's face into his jacket as I held him tightly.

"I'm not, Jeremy. It would be easier if I was, but I'm not. I'm sorry, Jeremy, I'm so, so sorry." I said, and raised my head so that I could see him properly, so that he could hear me loud and clear. "I haven't been there for you, Jeremy, and it's not fair. I've been so wrapped up in my own problems that I haven't been there for you, and I'll never be able to make it up to you."

"Elena," he said, bewildered, defensive, "I'm not your responsibility, I'm not some little kid anymore. I don't expect you to be sorry or to have been there."

"Didn't you?" I asked, putting Elena's hand up to his face, gently brushing her thumb against his cheek in a gesture of familial affection. "If you hadn't needed me, Jer, you wouldn't have said that you didn't expect me to be _sorry _for not being there _first_."

He stiffened, clearly uncomfortable. "Look, Elena," he muttered, looking away, "it's been a long night and you're obviously drunk or on something and we need to get home."

"Aunt Jenna's picking us up," I told him after a moment, "she called me a few minutes ago."

He nodded, not looking at me and I sighed.

"Jeremy, I've failed you. As your sister, I've failed you. I've failed at a lot of things lately, and I'll fail at a lot of things in the future, but this is one failure I can't just let go of. I'm scared, Jer. I'm absolutely fucking terrified."

If he was surprised at my show of coarse language, he didn't show it.

"There's cops everywhere, Elena." He said shortly, trying to reassure me in his own insecure way. "Whatever got…whatever got Vicki's not going to get you. It'll be okay."

"I'm scared for _you_, Jeremy. I haven't said anything because I've been in a bad place, but I'm really, really scared that something is going to happen to you. I…" I decided the best way to get him to consider my words was to hit hard below the belt, metaphorically speaking, and it was surprisingly easy to burst into tears as I threw my arms around him again and said, "I don't want anything to happen to you! I don't want you to end up gone like Mom and Dad!"

"I won't end up like them," he said defensively, upset at the reminder. "Elena, what the hell is going on with you?"

"I haven't been sleeping, Jer. I see their faces in my dreams and…I feel like it's my fault. Maybe if I'd hadn't…maybe it wouldn't have happened. You know, it's not even that. I feel _guilty_, Jeremy, because I lived and they died and look at me standing here now. They must be so ashamed. I lived and instead of doing what I should have, I abandoned you. I…

I used to wish so hard, Jeremy, _so hard_ that I could trade places with one of them, you know? Trade, because I need them here with me and you need them here with you and you needed me when they were gone and I flaked on you and Mom and Dad would have been so much better."

"Don't say stuff like that, Elena!" He shouted a little tremulously. "You can't just take your life for granted like that. Just…shut the hell up, okay? You don't know what you're talking about! What would they think if they saw you right now, if they heard you saying shit like that?"

Match point.

"I woke up today and realized that everything you just said is true. I woke up and decided to be a different person because they would have been so sad, so disappointed in what I'd become." I answered, straightening up to look him in the eye, and then glancing away, my voice softening.

"What would they say if they saw you, Jer?"

He never had the chance to answer, though I saw my words had shaken him up as much as he had intended his to strike me, because right at that moment, Jenna's car pulled up and soon we were on the way back to Elena's house.

When I was safe inside my room, I broke down.

I wanted to go home, I wanted to go back to my own life, to see my brothers and my mum and my gran. I wanted to play with my dog, I wanted my room and my things, I wanted safety, familiarity, and comfort. I didn't want Elena's life. Worse still, I didn't want to start caring for the people here when I knew that I would be spending every waking moment of my life trying to find a way to leave.

I didn't want to get caught up in the danger and darkness that was coming, I wanted to be at home with my family and friends. And what's worse is that I could feel it already: I was starting to care. I flung my notebook across the room, aiming so that it would simply hit the bed with a soft thump because I didn't want to break anything of Elena's.

I eyed the yellow-green diary that belonged to the real Elena for a moment before picking it up and grabbing a pen.

_Dear Elena_,

I wrote.

_I don't know how I got here or how I ended up taking over your life like this, but I would like to say, first and foremost, that I apologize. I wonder if you're somewhere around here, if you know what's happening, or if you're just gone. I'm going to do whatever I can to get you back where you belong and me back where I belong, I promise. I won't quit until I either find a way or find out there's no way. And I just want you to know that whatever happens, I'll do my best to protect the people you love in your place. And…I want you to know that I won't be writing in this book, not ever again. It's your book, and I don't want to intrude in your life any farther than I already have. I'm writing you this note to…I don't know, give you peace of mind. Give myself peace of mind. I don't know where you are right now, but I truly am sorry. _

_Yours,_

_Lena_

I stared down at the page for a moment before closing over the book and getting off the bed to put it away where Elena could find it again later and stopped. I had happened to look out the window and who should be standing there but Stefan.

He lifted a hand in soundless acknowledgement, his expression unsure, so I held up one finger to reassure him and set Elena's diary down, shrugged a jacket on over my pajamas, and tip-toed quickly to the door.

He was right there waiting.

"I know it's late," he started, but I cut him off with a wry grin.

"It's alright, I wouldn't have been sleeping any time soon anyway."

He looked as if he couldn't decide whether he wanted to voice concern or smile and seemed to at last settle on shrugging.

"I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

I was surprised, pleasantly so, but surprised nonetheless. I hadn't expected to make such an impression on him, although it was probably mainly Elena's looks and the whole doppelganger allure thing that did it since I was fairly certain he would only find my chatty presence tolerable at best.

"It's funny how when other people ask me that, it's a courtesy, but you really mean it, don't you?" I mused thoughtfully, leaning against the doorway, and then shook my head. "Sorry, rambling again. Do you want to go for a walk? Or is it too cold out?"

"We can walk, if you want." He agreed, and I slipped on the pair of flats I'd kicked off near the door out of habit and stepped outside, shutting the door behind me.

"Come on, it's so nice and fresh out!" I exclaimed, dancing out of my yard and twirling once on the sidewalk, laughing. I sobered quickly, though, at the thought of Vicki.

Stefan followed me with his hands in his pockets.

"_Are_ you okay?" He asked after a few, amiably silent minutes of walking.

I considered it.

"Okay? Probably not. I feel like I've changed overnight, and I'm still trying to match the person I'm becoming to this face, you know what I mean? But I'm learning. I'm settling in, making myself a place where I am because that's all I can do right now. But that's not a very good answer, is it?"

"It's an honest one," he replied quietly. "I think…that maybe I understand. It's hard enough to change because every part of you wants to fight it, and when you finally get there, it's like you don't really fit into the hole left by the old you. And you try to fill it up, but there's always something missing. Something that could make you whole again."

I tripped as my shoe got caught on a particularly large crack in the sidewalk and Stefan grabbed my shoulders to keep me from falling. I felt like the conversation was going somewhere I didn't want it to go, but there was something comforting about the honesty there was between us at that moment. Still…I couldn't just leave it there.

"After my parents died I was pretty much useless. I wasn't there for Jeremy like I should have been, and I neglected my friends because I was so wrapped up in self-pity I couldn't see straight. And yesterday, I made the decision to be better. I had fun with Bonnie and Caroline, who I've known forever, I found a new friend in you, I found the strength inside myself to quit moping and tonight, I think, I might have just gotten through to my brother.

I want to be a better person. I want to fill in the hole the old Elena left, and even if there are huge, important pieces that can't be replaced, there are little things, little happy pieces that can shore up those empty places so that I can be better. I want to live, really _live_, you know?"

We were nearly at the end of the street and I was recognizing that coming outside in soft cotton shorts had not been the most brilliant of my ideas.

"I know," Stefan said, the corner of his mouth pulled up in a smile, and then abruptly turned back, offering me his arm. "Come on, I'd better get you home. It's freezing out here."

We spoke of lighter things on the way back, and he walked me all the way up to Elena's door where we said our good nights.

"I'll see you at school tomorrow, Stefano!" I said cheerfully as he walked away. He stiffened at the nickname before turning around and waving.

"Until tomorrow, Lena!"

I beamed at his usage of the name I wished to adopt to differentiate me from Elena, and called rather mischievously, "and Stefan?"

"Yes?" He answered, pausing on the sidewalk to look back to me again.

I smirked.

"You can come in." I said loudly, and then waved one last time and called a cheery good night before quickly scurrying inside and shutting the door behind me.

Oh yes, I think that was the start of a beautiful friendship.

_To be continued in The Night of the Comet._


	3. THE NIGHT OF THE COMET

_The Night of the Comet_

I rolled out of bed the next morning with less coherent thought available to me than dirt had. Elena's hair was sticking out all over the place and was pretty much an absolute nightmare, which I attributed to my inability to lie in one place for longer than twenty-two seconds thanks to my insomnia, which Elena's body had regrettably picked up.

Oh well, I thought vaguely as I stumbled to her closet to grab some clothes to take with me to the bathroom to put on after showering, at least I won't be lying when I say I can't sleep.

Still uncomfortable (for obvious reasons) in Elena's body, I actually put in the effort of blow-drying my hair, though I didn't bother straightening it, and threw it up in an artistically messy bun, which I will have you know is the only hair style that does not involve braiding that I am capable of producing. I even went so far as to put on make-up, which I put on my way and as much as it sucked to admit it, it suited her far better than it had ever suited me.

I bumped into Jenna on the way out, who looked me up and down and nodded in a pleased, if surprised, fashion at Elena's slightly altered appearance.

"You look nice! Love the lipstick!" She said encouragingly, and I cracked a grin.

"I've always loved red lipstick, I guess I just didn't have the confidence to wear it," I excused, and then, returning her appraisal of me with one of her, I gave her two thumbs up. "Looking good, Aunty Jen," I said, winking. "Got a hot date or something?"

She sighed dramatically in disappointment.

"No. I'm going to a parent-teacher conference for Jeremy. Hair up or down?"

I considered it.

"Up, it's dressier, and since you don't exactly look like your run of the mill soccer mom, you may as well work the incredibly attractive, too-good-for-you professional angle."

"Aren't you feisty today," she observed good-naturedly, twisting her own hair up into a simple, stylish up-do. I grinned.

"It's a good day today," I said, "and I feel a bit feisty!"

We chatted briefly, I found out that Jeremy had left early to finish a birdhouse or something, but I didn't exactly know what classes he was in so I just shrugged and commented that I didn't know he was in woodshop and that was that.

School was excellent, and by excellent, I mean Elena's history teacher was a twat as usual and maths was unbearable. I was warming up to French, since it didn't seem that anyone knew what they were doing and while I may have been in Elena's body, it was my linguistically inclined mind that was calling the shots. Mind you, my mind had been a bit of a hindrance when it came to running laps in physical education, but I've gotten to thinking that if I can get over my natural hatred of exercise, Elena's pretty well-conditioned body will manage the rest.

Anyway! The reason school was excellent was because Stefan brought me a copy of _Wuthering Heights_, which was quite frankly bloody perfect of him since Elena owned hardly any books of note at all. And the copy was an antique at that! I spent the entire day reading it, and let me tell you, there is no better way to blow off maths.

On the plus side, I managed, at one point during the day, to converse with Matt without bringing up any of that awkward crush of his stuff. That was probably because we were talking about how Vicki had been attacked, but I digress.

I felt terrible when I asked about his mom and he recounted, very briefly, that he had called her and that, essentially, she was busy. What kind of utter cow thinks a boyfriend is more important than her own children?

I think he wanted to ask about Stefan and I, but I kept him talking until Caroline and Bonnie caught up with us and spirited me away for some coffee at a local café.

I nearly choked to death on the cinnamon roll I'd ordered when Bonnie told us her Grams said that the comet everyone had been talking about was a sign of impending doom. If only, I thought with a dark sort of mirth, she knew how right she was.

And then the conversation took a turn for the awkward and Caroline started grilling me about the time I spent with Stefan. For some reason, she found it very difficult to believe we had just talked.

"What is with the blockage?" She demanded in good humor. "Just jump his bones already!"

I nearly spit out my coffee.

"Okay, it's easy!" She continued as if she hadn't almost been drenched in scalding liquid (she really very lucky I managed to swallow before I started choking on it). "Boy likes girl, girl likes boy. Sex!"

She practically purred the last word, and once I had collected myself, I shot her a deadpan look. "Firstly," I started, "I don't even fancy him that way. Secondly, I'm pretty sure there's some stuff between the fact that they like each other and sex. Thirdly…hmm…thirdly, there doesn't have to be liking involved. Well, not liking the person, at least. As long as both parties like what they see…"

Caroline pointed at me with a look of amused, determined approval as Bonnie rolled her eyes at the two of us. "There!" Caroline announced. "Right there, you just basically gave yourself the okay! So hop to it, Elena!"

I snorted and then started packing up my stuff.

"Where are you running off to now?" Bonnie asked me, head tilted to the side in curiosity.

"I've come to my senses and am going to take Caroline's sage advice to heart," I drawled sarcastically, and then shook my head and grinned. "Nah, not really. The only checking out I hope to be doing is in the library from whence came this gem!" I exclaimed, holding up the copy of _Wuthering Heights _I'd finished reading during my last period of the day.

"Stefan talked big about his library, I want to see if he can back it up."

Caroline groaned and mock-banged her head onto the table.

"Guy looks like a model and you're checking out his _library_?" She groaned. "I give up."

"Have fun," Bonnie said pleasantly, a twinkle in her eyes I hadn't seen before. I wondered if it was because she was buying into the whole Stefan/Elena thing Caroline was on about, or if it were something else. I made a mental note as I waved goodbye and followed the direction provided to me by my phone to the Salvatore Boarding House to make time to hang out with her so that we could have a heart to heart or something.

The Salvatore Boarding House was easily recognizable from the show, so I admit to having a bit of an inner fangirling moment before I went up to the door. I stepped up with the intention of knocking and caught my finger on some little edge where the top of the knocker was bolted into the door. I pulled it away with a hiss of pain, grimacing at a little drop of blood blossoming on my right ring finger.

I stuck the point of it in my mouth to suck away the blood (because seriously, aside from the fact that it's cliché as anything to get injured at a vampire's house, it would be beyond stupid of me to not get rid of what might or might have not been temptation immediately) and then made the mistake of leaning my hand against the door as I dug through Elena's purse for the plasters I had recently bought.

The door swung wide open and I thus entered the Boarding House for the very first time in a flurry of limbs and swear words.

"Ugh, I'm going to be bloody black and blue by tomorrow," I groused, twisting until I was kneeling on the floor, scooping up the contents of my spilled purse and blowing stray strands of hair that had been loosed from my bun off my face as I did so.

"Hullo there!" I called out when I was done checking once, twice, three times to make sure nothing had happened to _Wuthering Heights_. "Stefano! It's me, Lena! You home…?"

There was no answer, and I was under no illusion that if Stefan were there he might have simply not heard me. Something didn't feel right, and I wracked my brain to try and place why the empty house seemed so familiar.

The door slammed suddenly shut behind me as a gust of wind blew from somewhere _in_ the house. "Real subtle," I deadpanned, not in the least amused. Feeling that it was far better to be safe than sorry, I took a moment to wrap a plaster around my finger and inspected my work. The Joker grinned up at me off my Batman band-aid.

"You and me both, mate." I said to him, and then swung my bag over my shoulder, clutched _Wuthering Heights _safely to my chest, and set off to meet my doom. Or Damon, if my hazy recollections were correct.

I wandered toward a sort of doorway that led to what I mentally labeled as the yard and was startled by a crow cawing and flying right through the bloody doorway and nearly into my face. I side-stepped it neatly, feeling my heart skip a beat or three in muted terror (I hadn't screamed but I felt I'd nearly popped a lung gasping so sharply).

"Once again, you little wanker! It's on a _midnight dreary _not a bright and sunny day!"

Irritated, I turned around and nearly had a heart attack.

I'd nearly smacked my poor face on Damon's, he was standing so close. "Bloody hell!" I cursed, holding _Wuthering Heights_ a little closer as I took a step back. He watched me for a moment before tilting his head ever so slightly to the side inquisitively. Damn it.

"Quit that," I told him, frowning. "I have a feeling it'll be difficult enough dealing with you without you making faces like _that_ and making it worse."

He blinked very deliberately and continued staring me down. It was not so strangely uncomfortable. But, it did remind me of my place, which was, at the moment, trespassing on private property even if I knew he'd been the one to secretly let me in.

"Sorry, I just came here to return Stefan's book, the door was open and then it wasn't and you're still doing it," I observed awkwardly. "Please say something."

"You must be Elena," he said at last in a rather charming voice. "I'm Damon, Stefan's brother."

I turned Elena's brown doe eyes on him to devastating effect.

"Do I know you from somewhere?" I asked curiously, sweetly, and then covered my mouth with my hand. "Sorry, you and your brother, I swear. The two of you have oddly familiar faces. Anyway, please, call me Lena."

He nodded but kept watching me, studying me and I stood there rather uselessly while he did so before growing a tad impatient and held up the book.

"Stefan was kind enough to let me borrow _Wuthering Heights_ at school today, and I told him I'd return it when I finished reading it. The day is long, classes are uncomplicated and/or boring, and so here I am."

"My brother is such a thoughtful young man," he commented drolly, abruptly changing his tone to a brighter, more welcoming one. "Please," he insisted pleasantly, gently touching a hand to my back and leading me towards what I presumed was the living room. "Come. I'm sure Stefan'll be along any second."

"What a beautiful room," I murmured as we stepped into it. "You don't see wood like that anymore…and what a gorgeous carpet."

Damon shrugged lightly.

"Eh, it's a little kitschy for my taste." He said offhandedly, observing me as I took in the room with delight, knowing that it was literally like being in a museum, except that everything could be touched, used like it was meant to. I was just running my hand along an extravagant side-table when Damon spoke up again.

"I see why my brother's so smitten," he expressed, and before he could put in his two pence towards sabotaging the blossoming romance I was not under any circumstances having with his brother, I held out a hand to silence him.

"No. I apologize most sincerely for being rude, but I'm going to have to cut you off there," I stated firmly. "We are absolutely, one-hundred percent not going to address your ridiculous notion that your brother feels something for me because he does not and I don't wish him to."

He raised his eyebrows.

"Quite the little romantic, aren't you?" He drawled sarcastically, and I vaguely wondered if I'd surprised him somehow.

"_Absolutely_," I said, shrugging. "I'm the most vehement type of romantic: the one who doesn't believe in love."

"Alright, princess, you gotta explain that one to me, because I'm a little out of the loop. You say you're a romantic, but you don't believe in love? How's that work for you?"

I rolled my eyes at his condescending tone, detecting underneath it a spark of interest in the way my mind works. Comparing me to Katherine, no doubt.

"I don't believe in love. I believe in a thousand different things that people feel at once that they use the word 'love' as a blanket term for. I don't think there's anything like 'true love' out there, because no one person loves another in the same way." I explained, taking my own turn to watch his reactions with hopefully moderately well-concealed interest. "There's affection, adoration, worship, obsession, possession, infatuation, lust, agape, want, need, attachment, passion…the list goes on. And every single person who has ever said 'I love you' is just saying that because they can't quite put the truth into words."

He was silent for a moment, just looking at me, and then readopted his casual ease and, crossing his arms behind his head in a leisurely fashion, asked me what my view on relationships was.

I blinked.

"You know," I started, mirth written all over my face. "I have no idea?"

"Aw, come on," he pressed, "all those big ideas and you can't come up with anything on relationships? What happened to my little pocket guru of love?"

I rolled my eyes.

"Ignoring that last statement because I don't even know where to begin pointing out what was wrong with it, I don't really have a view on relationships because I'm kind of maybe a little bloody terrified of commitment."

He let out a low whistle.

"That does put a bit of a damper on things."

"Tell me about it," I complained, throwing my hands up in the air in a playful way.

"Why are you so scared of commitment," he asked suddenly, and I fidgeted uncomfortably.

"Tell you what," I offered, "buy me a drink first."

He laughed and opened his mouth to say something when we were interrupted.

"Lena," Stefan called out in 'surprise.' Oh, come on, I knew he wasn't actually surprised by my being there, he had to have heard us from down the hall at least if not before he stepped into the house. "I didn't know you were coming over."

I waved at him.

"Hello to you too, Stefano! I did tell you I'd bring _Wuthering Heights_ back to you as soon as I'd finished it! I probably should have called first, though, I'm sorry…I didn't think."

"Oh, don't be silly!" Damon objected obligingly. "You're welcome any time!"

I had a feeling what little civility Stefan was managing to muster up in face of his brother's general prattiness was going to deteriorate quickly and I made the conscious decision to rectify the situation by removing myself from the equation as quickly as possible.

"Here you are, Stef, brought it back to you all safe and sound and in the exact same condition you lent it to me in!" I chirped, handing him the book (and thus subtly maneuvering myself between them, successfully blocking their view of each other). "Thanks again for letting me borrow it! Maybe we can have a little chat about it tomorrow at school. I'll see you in class!"

I gave him the signature hug + pat on back combo I reserved for all of my friends upon greeting and parting and then turned to Damon.

"It was really nice to meet you, Mr. Salvatore!" I said lightly, ready to high tail the hell out of there, but Damon wasn't quite done with me yet.

"Great meeting you too, Lena," he said with a charming, foxy sort of grin, and raised my hand to his lips and kissed it. "And please, call me Damon."

I raised an eyebrow at him awkwardly but nodded anyway, laughing it off a little more breathlessly than I would have liked and I thanked every greater power in existence that I didn't blush, because I would never, _ever_ hear the end of it if I did.

"Right, well, I'll be on my way now. See you in school, Stefan!"

I didn't stop until I was off the grounds, at which point I took a deep breath and collapsed into a heap on the side of the road.

"Note to self," I muttered, shielding my eyes from the sun. "Obtain a shit-ton of vervain."

Because I was pretty sure things were going to start picking up, and while I wasn't sure how, precisely, I felt about that, I knew one thing for absolute certain: it's better to be safe than sorry.

_To be continued in The Night of the Comet II._


	4. THE NIGHT OF THE COMET II

_The Night of the Comet II_

That evening, let me tell you, was about as fun as meeting Damon. Actually, no, scratch that. Meeting Damon was actually kind of fun. It was as fun as the ridiculous stare-down the Salvatore brothers had, which was tense as hell and not fun at all.

Jenna had gone to the parent teacher conference and come back super stressed and she would not for the life of her tell me why. Things escalated when Jeremy came home, high as a fucking kite, and essentially mocked her parental authority.

I hadn't known his drug problem was so serious since in all three of the days I'd been here, I'd never seen him that bad. He went up to his room and I'd tried to be there for Jenna, but she just sort of sighed tiredly at me and told me that it had been a long day and that I should get some rest. I began to seriously consider trying to get Stefan or even Damon to use compulsion on Jeremy so that he'd quit using, but it obviously wasn't a viable option yet so I dropped that train of thought completely and instead focused on obtaining vervain.

A quick google search told me where I could buy some dried vervain, which was, quite frankly, a god-send that I was immensely grateful for. I had been roped into helping Bonnie and Caroline hand out some flyers or something along those lines the next day, so I planned to stop by the herbal remedy store after school the next day before meeting up with them.

I'd certainly feel better knowing I wasn't susceptible to compulsion anymore, and I had a number of inspired ideas to keep myself compulsion-proof at all times. (There is nothing more ridiculous than the number of times a necklace or bracelet with vervain in it gets ripped off of someone by a pissed vampire).

And so it was that I became the proud owner of like, twenty-five dollars worth of dried vervain. Call me paranoid, if you must, but there would be no way whatsoever I was going to get caught off-guard. I put the pouch of herbs (which was, thankfully, labeled and had the store's logo on it and everything so that I didn't feel like I was trafficking drugs or something) safely away in my backpack after pulling out a piece of a sprig which I promptly pocketed for safety in the interim until I figured out how to wear it everyday.

Passing out flyers went without incident, and while we were doing it, I at last got that heart to heart I had been planning to have with Bonnie.

"You know," she started carefully, smiling a little, "you've seemed so much happier these past few days. I'm really glad, Elena. I was worried about you, I still am, but…I don't think I really need to be anymore."

I smiled shyly in response.

"I feel like a different person. I am happier, you know that? I think…I think that change is what I needed, and hopefully on my way to becoming a more whole person, I'll become a better one."

"You have been a little different," Bonnie conceded, and I felt the atmosphere shift into something more tentative. I swallowed.

"Bad different…?" I asked, looking at her unsurely.

"Good different," Bonnie clarified with a slight grin.

I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.

"Okay. Right. That's brilliant. I…" I felt like she was accepting me, not Elena. "I'm really glad. I…You're my best friend, Bonnie. You've always been there for me and I want to become a person who can always be there for you, too. I don't think I'm quite there yet, but I want to be strong like you. So…stay with me, okay?"

"Of course!" She cried without a moment's hesitation, and threw her arms around my neck. "Always, Elena. And…don't worry. I know you've changed a bit, but you're still you! And I'm always going to be here, whenever you need me."

I grinned, although I wondered if deep down the real Elena and I had been so similar that Bonnie could say something like that to me.

"Thanks, Bon!" I said at last, and returned the hug affectionately.

The Night of the Comet event was pretty cool. We got these candle things in like, wine-glass shaped holders and I had a run-in with Matt during which we spoke exclusively about the well-being of his sister, whom I had expressed my concerns (although really mainly Jeremy's) for, and then I'd gone to light someone else's candle with mine and it turned out to be Stefan.

"Lena," he said with a warm, if subdued smile on his face.

"Hullo to you too, Stefano!" I answered, throwing my arms around him in a welcoming hug. "Get everything sorted out with your brother?"

A faint twinge of darkness settled over his face but it passed as quickly as a summer storm. "Something like that," he said slowly, and then offered me his arm with a questioning look. I grinned and took it, and let him lead me on a walk.

"I brought you something," he said after a moment, and pulled another book out of who knows where in his jacket. I accepted it gratefully and read the title.

"You're amazing!" I cried out, holding the book in front of my face, drinking the details in. "Where did you even get this?"

"It was passed down," he lied matter-of-factly. "You mentioned you liked Fitzgerald when we were talking, and you said this was your favorite, so…consider it an apology for being so rude yesterday."

I waved his concern away, still cradling the book lovingly in my arm.

"It's alright. I was the rude one, anyway, barging in like that."

"Still," he said, smiling at my obvious excitement, "I'd like you to have that."

My mouth popped open and I stared at him in shock, _This Side of Paradise_ momentarily forgotten. "I can't!" I said, almost horrified by the idea. "This is the _first edition_! It probably belongs in a museum!"

"I want you to have it," he answered firmly, and I felt my knees grow rather weak at the thought.

"It's too much," I said, firmly, looking away. And then looked back to shoot him a lazy grin. "Maybe for my birthday, though."

As an afterthought, since I was slightly afraid he'd take the book, I turned back to him with a pinched look of mild worry on my face. Er, Elena's face.

"I can still borrow it though, right?" I pleaded and apparently abandoned all my dignity doing it.

Stefan started laughing, honest to God actually laughing.

"Yes," he said, smiling more widely than I had seen him do before, "You can still borrow it."

We talked a little longer and then Caroline was calling me, and a group of us went to the Grill where I was able to confirm that Tyler Lockwood was an absolute, utter _dick_.

"Jeremy," I called, gently taking hold of his jacket to tug him back. "Wait."

"What do you want, Elena?" He asked stubbornly, his eyes scanning the room for Vicki worriedly. He had come to ask us if anyone had seen her, and no one had, and then Tyler had to antagonize him and now he was in a terrible mood and the entire table I'd been sitting at now knew my brother to be some sort of dealer.

"I'll help you look for Vicki," I said after a moment. "I don't want you walking around alone. I…I heard some things earlier and…"

I shrugged a little, and he tore his arm out of my grip and turned on me.

"Why don't you just say it, Elena?" He demanded angrily. "Why don't you just come out and ask? I'm not a pill pusher, but you know I'm using. I hooked Vicki up a few times. Aren't you going to lecture me? Aren't you going to read me the riot act and tell me I'm a disappointment?"

He looked so upset I rather wanted to cry.

"Would you listen if I did? Would it help?" I questioned gently, and he looked away. "That's why I haven't said anything, Jer."

The way he squared his shoulders screamed that he was done with addressing the proverbial elephant in the room and would leave if I pressed him any further (even though he had brought it up), so I didn't. Instead, I moved so that I was standing right next to him and said very simply, "Let's go find Vicki."

We looked around for a while, until I got a text from Matt to inform us that she'd been found and was alright. (I had asked him to inform us once she was safe). Jeremy and I parted ways after that, I presume he was going to go to Vicki, and I decided that had been enough excitement for the night and went home.

When I got there and made my way up the stairs with the intention of curling up with _This Side of Paradise_, I was met by the rather out-of-place sight of Jenna digging around in Jeremy's room.

"Hi, Aunt Jenna," I piped curiously from the door. "What are you up to?"

She jumped and then shook her head, looking miserably at me before saying, "I have become my worst nightmare. The authority figure that has to violate a fifteen-year-old's privacy."

She then proceeded to rifle through a backpack and pull something out of a boot.

"Jackpot," she utter with fake enthusiasm. "I see the hiding places haven't become any more creative.

"What…what brought this on?" I asked, glancing about myself uncomfortably. I knew exactly what had brought this on: Jeremy's drug using.

Jenna snorted a little despairingly.

"Your ass-hat of a history teacher shamed me good yesterday," she muttered dryly, rummaging through a drawer. I winced in sympathy; I had class with that intolerable git every day. I knew exactly what she was talking about.

"'Discover the impossible, Miss Sommers,'" she quoted at herself bitterly. "Got it, thanks. Like I didn't know I was screwing up."

"You're not," I supplied immediately, putting a hand sympathetically on her shoulder. "Do you think there's anyone in the world who would have been better for us than you? You've literally been our strength since Mom and Dad died, and don't think that anyone else, especially a tactless imbecile like that dumb twat Tanner could do better."

Jenna laughed a little, but it was hollow.

"I try, Elena. I try, but…I'm not _her_," she said after a moment, tears welling up in her eyes. "She made everything look so easy. High school, marriage, having you…I…I can't do it. I'm going to say or do the wrong thing and he's gonna get worse and it's gonnabe_ my _fault."

"Aunt Jenna," I murmured, feeling upset because she was upset and I didn't want her to be. "People forget that you're grieving too. You're doing the best you can in an endlessly difficult situation, and you can't blame yourself for what's going on with Jeremy. If you're at fault then so am I, because I wasn't there for him when I should have been. The best we can do now is to try our hardest to help him so that we can all move on together."

She was looking at me so despondently I moved closed and enveloped her in a brief, firm hug. "Listen to me," I said, trying to impress my sincerity on her with my expression. "You've done your best, and you'll continue doing your best because that's who you are. There is no one on the face of the planet that would try as hard as you always do. And, I know I'm just a teenage girl who doesn't know much about the world, but you can talk to me. You don't have to be this pillar of strength for us, Aunt Jen. You've always been here for us, and it's time we were there for you, too."

"You're so mature lately, and so much more…cheerful, too," Jenna observed in wonder, and then hugged me twice as hard as I'd hugged her. I was taken aback but hesitantly wrapped my arms around her too, unsure.

"Are…are you going to be okay?" I asked her after a moment, and she nodded and pulled away, sniffling slightly. This alarmed me, but she waved off the concern I hadn't realized had crept onto my face with a hand as she wiped at the corner of her eyes with the other.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," she insisted, and then looked at me with a smile. "Aren't you going to go watch the comet with your friends? I didn't think you'd be home so early."

I considered this for a moment before realizing I'd practically missed the entire point of the evening, which was to watch the comet. "Yeah, I think I'll do that," I answered without really thinking about it, "I'll be back later."

"Have fun," she called after me as I strolled leisurely away, nabbed my jacket off the banister on my way down the stairs, and pondered where to go.

I was halfway to my destination before I actively made the decision to go there.

To say Stefan was surprised, if pleasantly so, when he opened the door was to say the least of his reaction. He looked taken aback, really, and then smiled. "I see you can't stay away," he drawled, leaning against the doorway for a moment.

I rolled my eyes, a smile playing at my lips.

"Maybe if you'd be a little less irresistible," I suggested humorously and then shrugged. "But no, I went home and it was brought to my attention that I hadn't actually watched the comet this evening, and to not do so would have been a terrible shame."

"So you're here to ask me to come comet-watching with you?" He clarified teasingly with a subdued grin. I nodded.

"Precisely. Comet-watching is best done in good company and in case you hadn't noticed, you're kind of one of my best friends." I informed him, and then realized what I was saying was true. It was true because, while Bonnie was wonderful and I genuinely loved her because she is a lovely person…Bonnie is Elena's best friend who just so happens to get on well with me.

Stefan, on the other hand, didn't know Elena at all before I became her, so all of our long, late night discourses on literature and philosophy and life, our friendly chats and idle silliness we'd enjoyed over the teensy handful of days we'd known each other were entirely between us. He was not friends with me because he'd been friends with Elena first. He was friends with me entirely for my personality (and Elena's looks, can't forget the looks).

Ironically, only him and I supposed in the future possibly Damon if we got on well…literally, the two who would always see Katherine in Elena's face, were the only people in town that would see me as myself and not as Elena with a few new quirks. Of course he was one of my best friends. How could he not be?

"I would be honored to watch the comet with you, Miss Lena." He said, and bowed slightly at the waist, making me laugh. Adopting a flirtatious, Southern Belle persona, I inclined my head in a very coquettish, refined manner and said, with a full on Southern twang, "Why, Mr. Salvatore! You are too kind!"

I took the arm he offered me with a grin and we walked out into the yard, going over to sit on the little divider wall between the front of the house and the lawn. We gazed up at the comet in silence, neither of us needing to say anything, really, and I rather drifted in my thoughts, thinking of the familiar scene. Elena had gone to see Stefan, hadn't she? At least I got that right.

I leaned back on my hands on the fence as I contemplated with pleasure that perhaps things would be salvageable for Elena when she got back (because I refused to so much as imagine the possibility that she wouldn't be back, that I would be stuck as her forever) and thought about what was happening, what was going to happen.

And then the thought struck me and I wondered briefly if it was too late to give Caroline vervain. But no, it had been at the end of Comet Night that she'd ended up banging Damon, right? Ah, yes. She'd been banging Damon while Elena and Stefan had a little snog for the first time while…while watching the comet.

Elena and Stefan had a little snog.

I lurched back so violently I ended up tumbling off the back off the wall I was sitting on, hit the ground hard, and lay dazed for a moment before scrambling into a sitting position. Stefan had been at my side in an instant, although I appeared to have caught him so off guard even vampire speed wasn't quick enough to catch me from falling.

"Are you alright?" He asked, confused and just generally alarmed.

"I think so," I said, edging away from him not-so-subtly. "I just…I have these weird dreams, sometimes. And I thought of one that I had recently that was, uh, particularly scary."

That was story I'd settled on to explain my knowledge. I'd practiced it every morning first thing, and every night as I fell asleep. Dreams. That's what they were, as far as anyone else needed to know anyway.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He asked kindly, and I sighed lightly, shaking my head.

"Don't you ever get tired of hearing me blabber?" I questioned, smiling.

"Never," he replied quickly, and a deep sort of anxiety began to bubble in my stomach. I'd meant it as a joke, and he'd gone and been all sincere about it. It frightened me. I looked away and decided to change the subject with a bit of comet-talk.

"Brilliant, isn't it?" I mused, crossing my arms behind my head where I lay, too sore to bother getting up. Stefan sat down beside me, looking up to the comet much like I was.

"It's beautiful."

We were silent for a moment and then, thoughtfully, I tore my gaze from the comet to look at him. "Hey, Stefan?" I mumbled a little distractedly, thinking about what Bonnie had said about the comet being an omen of doom.

"Yeah?"

"I don't know," I said, and then after a brief pause continued. "I guess I just wanted to say thank you. You're a good person, and I'm really glad to know you. You inspire me, I guess, to…embrace change and all that. I think…I think I've been going in circles for the longest time and now I'm finally moving off those well-worn paths and trying something new."

And I was. In a way. I was trying to find balance between being my normal, lazy, antisocial self and the more outgoing, friendly, hard-working or at least active Elena.

"I inspire you?" He questioned, amusement written across his face. I sat up at his tone and playfully swatted him on the shoulder as I answered.

"Don't go getting a big head, now. One day, I'll tell you why, but there are a lot of things neither of us are saying right now and it should stay that way, I think. At least for a little while longer. So just hold onto that thought until then, alright? You inspire me, and I believe in you."

We had a bit of a moment, which made me feel very, _very_ uncomfortable and I think Stefan actually noticed, because he beat me to the inevitable change of subject I would have insisted upon and from that point, conversation flowed easily between us.

We spent another few hours outside, until I ended up covering my mouth with my hand perpetually as I yawned. Then things took a little turn for the strange side, because Stefan, as if abruptly putting two and two together, frowned at the no-longer-very-bright-yellow plaster on my finger and frowned.

"I meant to ask you…a Batman band-aid?" He inquired casually, as if it was really the design on the plaster that interested him rather than what lay beneath it.

"I am nothing if not the _essence_ of style," I returned snootily, not quite managing to hide my grin. And then, since I was pretty sure I knew where he was going with this line of questioning, I decided to elaborate on my little accident.

"It's just a little scratch," I said easily, "I actually got it yesterday. Not sure how, but I managed to nick it on the knocker on your door when I came to return _Wuthering Heights_. Seeing as you were a little…uncomfortable around blood in the cemetery, I thought it would be polite to wrap it up before I saw you."

He nodded supposedly abashed by my 'knowledge' of his 'issue' with blood and I saw him looking at me with a small measure of relief in his face. I wondered if he suspected Damon had done something, although I was marginally sure that if he had, it would take more than a little plaster to cover it up.

We hung out, we had fun, and then I went home. I couldn't sleep that night, so I decided to use my time productively to start compulsion-proofing myself. And perhaps, I thought with a furrowed brow as I rummaged around for a needle and thread, I would take what time I had now to begin to carefully consider what courses of action were going to be available to me in the future.

I had been in Elena's body nearly four days, with no explanation or further sign of anything remotely useful. To be fair, the supernatural was still lurking around the corners of Elena's world, so it made sense that I wouldn't receive any further knowledge until I was properly immersed in it. But that left the questions I had hitherto refused to address: How long would I be here? How long would I have to play Elena's part, and how, exactly, was I supposed to proceed with doing so without utterly changing the plot?

Also…

If I did change things…would it really be a bad thing?

_To be continued in Friday Night Bites._


	5. FRIDAY NIGHT BITES

_Friday Night Bites_

The next morning, I woke up feeling refreshed, prepared, and ready to kick some ass. Well, no. Not the last bit. But I did feel refreshed, because I'd gotten a solid four hours of sleep which was more than I was used to in my own body, and I felt ready for any attempts at compulsion that might come my way thanks to my little arts and crafts time the night before.

I sewed little patches of vervain into the inside of the back of every single one of Elena's bras. I used fabric from and old t-shirt I figured she wouldn't mind losing and went at it. So now, unless the vampire trying to use compulsion on me figured out I had vervain in my bra and ripped _that_ off, I was compulsion-proof!

Just in case, I sewed the tiny patches onto the inside of the back of my preferred sets of Elena's shoes. If anyone noticed, I could always say it was to prevent blisters or something. All of my little waterproof vervain patches had two layers of cotton to keep me from being able to feel the teensy, tiny cuttings of dried vervain through the fabric. It worked like a charm.

So now, unless vampires literally took off both my bra and shoes I was set.

As I walked to school with Bonnie, chatting idly about this or that, I made a mental note to a.) make myself some sort of very obvious vervain charm, like a necklace or something, b.) give the waistband of all of my panties the same treatment so that I would not be caught off guard while sleeping simply because my preferred pajamas were a baggy shirt and maybe, possibly shorts, and…and that was it, really.

"Look, Elena, I know you're friends with Stefan," Bonnie began, snapping me out of my train of thought. "Just…be careful around him, okay? He's new and we don't really know that much about him. You know more than us, and you don't know much about him. I don't want to see you get hurt."

Instead of questioning where this was coming from as insistently as Elena would have, I innocently asked with concern, "Why? Did something happen?"

Bonnie shook her head.

"No, I…You'll think it's stupid," she confessed, "I just have this weird feeling."

To set her mind at ease, I nodded easily.

"Don't worry, I'll be careful. I think your Grams might have been onto something with the whole thing about you being psychic, so if you tell me to step lightly around him, I will. I trust you. That being said, if you ever get any funny feelings about the lotto numbers…"

I trailed off suggestively, winking at her. The somber sort of mood that had settled over the two of us lifted and she laughed. "Yeah, sure," she said, giggling. "I'll let you know."

We laughed together as we walked until we came across Stefan, who Bonnie was instantly uneasy about. I nudged her in the side with a pout when she tried to excuse herself and felt that I had succeeded at least to a certain extent in reassuring her because she said to both me _and_ Stefan, "I'll see you guys later, okay?"

"I'll hold you to that!" I chirped merrily, hooking my arm with Stefan's as she walked away with a wave of acknowledgement. "Sorry about that, she's had a bit of a rough night last night."

"I don't think she likes me much," Stefan said a little dryly, and I hesitated for a moment before settling on shaking my head.

"She's just a little leery of strangers because she's worried about Caroline. We've both tried texting her but she doesn't answer and we don't even know if she got home safely…" I explained, but I had a sinking feeling in my stomach that told me she had been with Damon.

Stefan opened his mouth to retort but stopped suddenly and abruptly spun around on his heel and…caught a football? We had been rudely interrupted by a football?

He threw it back with (vampire) strength that left all the people around us impressed and I will admit to getting a rather vicious sense of satisfaction watching Tyler, who had been a git to my brother, I mean Jeremy, stumble back at the power in the throw.

"Alright," I said, a bit stupefied because let's face the facts, it was the first display of supernatural ability I had witnessed in my life and I was just as impressed as the people around me, "firstly, er, _nice catch_. I mean, the throw was incredible and all, but you just turned around and caught that out of nowhere. If I threw little notes at you in class would you catch them like that too?"

He raised an eyebrow at that so I moved on, a little embarrassed, as if I hadn't stopped talking: "And secondly, I was wondering if you'd like to come over after school. Bonnie will be there too, maybe, I haven't asked her yet, and we can have dinner together and watch a movie or something."

"What time do you want me to come over?" He asked without further need for my rather pathetic attempts at persuasion.

"Right after school, dinner time, or any time in between. I'm not fussed, and you know where I live." I replied with a easy-going shrug.

"After school it is, then. Beats being stuck at home."

I grinned.

We ended up talking about his incredibly catch and throw, and by we, I mean I ended up leading the conversation there by informing him that he should have been in my gym class, to which he laughed.

"No, really!" I persisted on our way to my locker. "If you were in my class you could play on my team and then we'd win and I'd never have to run loser's laps again!"

"You don't like running?" He asked, a hint of a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth as he watched me pull my books from my locker. Er, _Elena's_ locker.

"Only when I'm being chased." I teased, and then flounced cheerfully to class, not looking behind to see his expression. The reason behind my sudden retreat was, of course, panic, because I sincerely hadn't meant to come off so coquettishly, hadn't meant for my voice to drop a little lower and sound a little husky as I said it. I hadn't even meant to do that, to say something like that at all. It was, of course, utterly consistent with _my_ character, but…

I wasn't me anymore. I was Lena Gilbert, and I had a role to play.

History was spectacular, and by spectacular, I mean endlessly boring until I completely missed Tanner asking me a question (I was utterly absorbed in _This Side of Paradise_) and repeating it. Stefan answered for me, a secret smile playing about his face as he drew Tanner's attention away from me.

The result of this was a historical pissing contest the likes of which I wished happened every day. Tanner kept naming random events, expecting Stef to fail, and, well, he didn't. I was nearly absolutely sure that the only reason he knew the years of each happening was because he had lived through them, but that made it no less impressive.

Seeing Tanner, who I loathed twice as much after seeing how his words had affected Jenna, so furious at being showed up was a pleasure I could repeat indefinitely.

My plans for after school were in between History and French by Bonnie, who had asked me if I would please consider attending cheer practice after school, which I realized with a jolt of dread was something Elena actually did. I agreed weakly, found out when I could expect (the horror of) it to be over and informed Stefan of the change of plans in French.

French class, which I was begrudgingly warming up to, as much as I would have preferred German, was a free period, so Stefan and I ended up chatting the entire time, which is a nice way of saying I had grumbled about my P.E. class for about ten solid minutes before we moved to a different subject.

"You wouldn't be in P.E. if you went back to cheerleading," he observed mildly as I whined, causing me to sit up rapidly.

"What?"

He was right, he was utterly, completely right. Elena had been transferred to P.E. because she wasn't up to being peppy and athletic after her parents' deaths. If I were to start cheerleading again, I would benefit in two ways: 1.) I would no longer have to run laps in gym, which was the most beautiful part of this solution, 2.) I would be able to take a different elective, art or choir, perhaps, and 3.) I would be getting some sort of physical activity that would, ideally, keep Elena's body in more or less the same shape she left it in.

"You're bloody brilliant. Have I ever told you that? Because you are." I informed Stefan gravely, and then remembered that I had agreed to go with Bonnie anyway and continued to tell him that, regrettably, I 1.) had forgotten to ask Bonnie over and 2.) would not be home until after that cheering thing I was going to.

"You're really going to do it?" He asked me with a smile, relaxing in his chair.

I nodded quickly and then groaned, slumping over my desk.

"Is it weird that I'm nervous as anything and afraid I'll be awful at it and…I don't know…" I mumbled into my arm, then sitting up to look at him inquisitively. "What about you? Any extracurricular activities you're interested in?"

He shrugged modestly and answered in the negative, but I remembered Stefan had played football and that it had been Elena that convinced him to try out and…

"What about football?" I asked suddenly. "You were amazing earlier, when you threw the ball like that and I still can't get over how you caught the bloody thing. Tanner's the coach and I'm pretty sure he hates you right now, but if you're any good, which I highly suspect you are, he'll put you on the team for sure."

He looked as if he were considering it before shaking his head.

"I…don't think so," he said after a moment. "Besides, it's a little late for tryouts, isn't it?"

I pushed him playfully.

"Come on, it won't hurt to try, will it? Plus, when you make the team I'll actually have someone I feel comfortable cheering for, considering Matt and I don't talk and the only other person I know on the team is a twat."

The bell rang before he had time to answer and the topic was dropped amidst the rustle of escaping students. We didn't have any time to talk later in English, though we did exchange phone numbers and I told him I'd text him when I got home.

Cheer practice, though it seemed endlessly intimidating for a person to whom 'being active' meant walking to the chippy for a fish supper, was surprisingly not that bad. I had been strangely flexible for an utterly un-athletic person and Elena was endlessly superior in that area. Stretching was easy. And talking to Bonnie, however, was decidedly less so.

She refused my invitation to dinner, claiming to have other plans, but it had been very obvious that she didn't want to go anywhere near Stefan. I wasn't sure what had happened at this point in the show, but I didn't want to pressure her for my own selfish whim, so I dropped it. Instead, we worried over Caroline, who had still not shown up or replied to any of our texts.

"Seriously, where is Caroline?" Bonnie asked fretfully as we took a quick break.

"I don't know," I said quietly. "I just hope she's alright."

Bonnie decided to call her again, and I sipped at my water, lost in thought. She was with Damon. It was the only possible explanation for her uncharacteristic absence. In fact, I was in the middle of this thought when a light blue Chevrolet rolled up, music blaring.

"Er, Bonnie?" I drawled weakly. "I think I found her."

Bonnie glanced up and her eyes widened in shock as the two of us watched the car roll to a stop, Caroline leaning over to press her mouth to Damon's in a slow, satisfied kiss.

"Oh my God," Bonnie uttered in amazement. "That must be the mystery guy from the Grill."

I tried very hard not to laugh.

"Well," I said, inclining my head towards the couple in vague amusement, "Let me clear up the mystery for you. That's Damon. Damon Salvatore. Apparently, he's Stefan's brother."

Caroline seductively (?) pulled herself out of the car and, as she was passing Bonnie and I, glanced at me and said, "I got the other brother. Hope you don't mind…!"

I frowned and looked after her in confusion.

"Caroline, that's Stefan's brother." I informed her, knowing that she was laboring under the absurd presumption that I had 'gotten' Stefan. "You know, Stefan? My friend? Remember our conversation the other day? You know, 'the only checking out I'll be doing is in his library?'"

She ignored me in favor of cheerfully, utterly insincerely apologizing for being late, and instructing us to do some sort of…warm-up. I should have known the pleasant stretching was a ruse. Sighing, I resigned myself to exercising and turned back to the group, but only after waving pleasantly at Damon and chirping, "Hello, Mr. Salvatore!" at him with a smirk.

Bonnie looked like she was choking on a giggle and Caroline looked as though she'd swallowed a lemon. Damon looked about as pleased as the title as he had back at the Boarding House, where he'd tried to charm the rather unflattering formality out of me.

I didn't say anything else because I didn't want to upset Caroline, especially since she was under compulsion, but I wasn't going to stand there and let her drag me into some weird cat-fight because she had a thing for Stefan and was unsuccessful in seducing him.

Damon plastered a charming smile on his face.

"You can call me Damon, Lena," he corrected in a low, almost seductive voice. The other girls were watching between the two of us now even more intently than they'd watched as Caroline kissed him. Why, I didn't know, but I wasn't going to let him weasel his way into practice.

I smiled sweetly.

"It makes me uncomfortable to address adults like I would other kids at school, Mr. Salvatore. I hope you can forgive me. Until next time!" I excused 'bashfully,' and went back to the practice field. Bonnie's mouth had fallen open in surprise and Caroline looked none too pleased.

I felt bad, and opened my mouth to apologize but she cut me off by ordering me to my place in the line where I would fail at mimicking the movements of the others so abysmally she ended up telling me to just watch. Honestly, practice was awful, although I liked the music playing in the background, and the only bright side to it was that I caught a glimpse of Stefan in a football uniform presumably jogging towards his chance at making the team.

"Good luck, Stefano! I believe in you!" I cheered quietly, and then turned back to watch the other girls go through the routine, wondering vaguely if he had heard me or not. Not that he would tell me if he had, but I digress.

Watching them practice got boring as hell fairly quickly, and since Caroline was doing her best to ignore my existence (a rift I needed to heal, perhaps with the present of a nice vervain-laced friendship bracelet or something), I wandered off to watch Stefan play.

I had no idea what they were doing, but it looked like Stefan was doing a good job, because the other boys seemed very impressed and were patting him on the back and all that.

It was all going smoothly until one of the other boys decided to tackle him in mid-air.

Stefan hit the ground so hard it was a wonder he didn't break anything. Well, I guess he didn't because of the whole vampire thing, but it still looked painful and I felt rather bad. I didn't want to get caught slacking off so I hurried back to cheer practice in time, essentially, to be publicly dismissed by Caroline, which was embarrassing, if not quite humiliating.

On the plus side, Bonnie had been so taken aback by the way Caroline was acting, she agreed to come to dinner at my place, and we stopped on the way back to pick up groceries, because I had it in my mind to make something myself.

"Since when do you cook?" Bonnie asked me with a teasing grin.

I shrugged modestly.

"I learned a few recipes from my…mum and dad," I lied, meaning to say my gran and my granddad on my da's side. Obviously, that wouldn't have made sense, since as far as I knew Elena didn't know her grandparents. Bonnie must have interpreted my pause as a touch of grief over Elena's parents' deaths, which I did nothing to disprove.

I made some chips from scratch, which caused Bonnie to raise an eyebrow in amusement, and made the best approximation I could muster to my granddad's pasties, which turned out rather well. I was very well pleased to find puff pastry at the store, which made such a feat possible. I also heated up some peas to go with it, and had picked up some Irn-Bru in the import section. When we were done, Bonnie gave me a strange look.

"Where did all this come from, Elena?" She questioned lightly, though I could sense her curiosity and possibly some unease in her tone. I blinked and then realized that, while my plan to ease the pangs of homesickness constantly threatening to cripple me through giving me a literal taste of home had been successful, it had rather ousted my foreignness, and I don't mean that just as a stranger from another world.

"You'd be amazed at what I learned to cook over the summer," I told her with a grin, and then musingly added, "Maybe I should host some kind of dinner party so that I'll get the chance to show off my fancy chef skills…I make a killer dessert!"

Bonnie shook her head at my exuberance and helped me transfer the food to serving plates so that they would look nicer, and we talked idly of everything under the sun but Stefan and eventually made it full circle to her psychic abilities.

I was incredibly accepting and encouraging of the idea in hopes that it would make her relax, which I think helped a little, but not enough, because even though she was in a pretty good mood after playing the guess-what's-in-this-drawer game, she was very, _very _quiet at the dinner table, which resulted in a very, _very _awkward meal.

"These are very good," Stefan directed at me after a few minutes of silently digging in. "I haven't had a Cornish pasty in like, fifty years."

His attempt at humor, which I mildly suspected was actually a true statement, fell flat.

Bonnie didn't look at him, only muttered, "It's very good, Elena," under her breath and resumed eating. Silence fell for another solid minute and I found myself reaching for my glass of Irn-Bru and taking deliberate, drawn-out sips of the sugary orange ginger to fill in the unbearable quiet until I couldn't take it anymore.

"So!" I exclaimed brightly from where I sat at the end of the table, drawing Bonnie and Stefan's attention away from their plates (which they were staring at to avoid looking at each other). "I was trying to convince Stefan to try out for the football team, and apparently he did. I'm dying to know how it went."

The look on Bonnie's face told me that my effort to ease the tension was glaringly obvious and unappreciated.

Stefan, probably out of pity, decided to rescue my clumsy attempt at creating conversation by casually interjecting, "I made the team, actually. Tanner gave me a shot after school today. If it wasn't for you, Lena, I wouldn't have tried at all. Thank you."

I hastily started backtracking at that, deeply uncomfortable with his sincerity.

"It was all you, Stef! You and your talent and practically inhuman reflexes."

Discomfort flashed across his face and I realized suddenly what I'd said. I had just opened my mouth to rectify the situation when the doorbell rang.

"Who on earth could that be?" I wondered aloud as I excused myself from the table and made my way down the hall. As soon as I opened the door, I immediately wished I hadn't.

"Surprise!" Caroline called cheerfully, holding a red velvet cake out as a peace offering, Damon standing casually behind her. "Bonnie said you were doing dinner, so we brought dessert!"

My face must have been utterly aghast, because she looked contrite and then without warning pulled me into a one-armed embrace, holding the cake out to the side.

"I'm sorry, Elena," she said sincerely. "I don't know what was going on with me earlier."

I nodded vaguely, internally panicking. I didn't want to invite Damon in. No, no, no. Was this how he had gotten his invitation to Elena's place in the show? I didn't know.

"It's completely alright, Caroline. I'm sorry for being so, er, catty anyway. I was just a bit irritated about all the assumptions people were making about my nonexistent love-life and I snapped at you a little."

"Great!" She squealed happily, and walked into the house, handing me the cake.

Stefan appeared almost out of nowhere as she did so, his expression a mixture of carefully concealed anger and worry as he stared down his brother.

"What are you doing here?" He asked in a low voice, obviously trying not to draw attention to the ridiculously obvious tension between him and his brother.

"Waiting for dear Lena here to invite me in," Damon returned cheerfully, and looked at me expectantly. My heart sank.

"Sure," I said noncommittally, turning around with the cake wondering how on earth my heart was pounding so steadily. "We were just heading to the living room, I'll be there in a tic with slices of cake for everyone. In fact, I should go put the kettle on for tea and coffee right now!"

"Aw, come on, Lena!" Damon said, pouting mischievously. "After all, you don't want to be rude to old Mr. Salvatore, do you?"

I stiffened, I couldn't hide it, before turning around with a polite smile plastered on my face. "Please," I said genially, "won't you come in, Mr. Salvatore?"

"Certainly," he purred, and stepped over the threshold.

Stefan stood rigidly by as his brother deliberately brushed past him, a self-satisfied smile plastered on his face as he idly complimented, "You have a beautiful home, Lena."

"Thank you," I said, perhaps a little tightly and decided to let it go. I had invited him in and there was nothing I could really do about it now.

And so it was that we were all seated in the living room, eating cake and drinking coffee (I was the only one who opted for tea, go figure).

"I cannot believe that Mr. Tanner let you on the team!" Caroline said, impressed, and then snickered a little to herself. "Tyler must be _seething_! But, good for you! Go for it!"

Stefan nodded slightly in acknowledgement of her well-wishes and was interrupted by Damon drawling in satisfaction, "That's what I'm always telling him. You have to engage, you can't just sit there and wait for life to come to you. You have to go get it!"

"Yeah, Elena wasn't so lucky today," she agreed, and I cringed momentarily, which she must have noticed because she went on to reassure me, saying, "It's only because you missed summer camp!"

And added, as an afterthought, "I don't know how you're ever going to learn the routines." That smashed what fragile hope I'd had pretty quickly.

"I'll work with her," Bonnie interjected firmly. "She'll get it."

I could have kissed her.

"I guess we could put her in the back," Caroline mused and I felt my face heat up in shame.

"Yeah, you don't…you don't seem like the cheerleader type, Lena," Damon said smoothly, turning everyone's attention back to me. I felt Stefan nudge me almost imperceptibly in the side with his elbow in quiet support, which made me feel a bit better, but what Damon said was true and hearing it from him was somehow twice, three times as discouraging.

"Oh, that's just cause her parents died," Caroline explained for me and I nearly choked on the sip of tea I had been taking at the time. What the hell? Had she always been so tactless, or was she that mad at me for earlier? "I mean, she's just totally going through a blah phase; she used to be _way_ more fun!"

What an utter _cow_, I thought, my lips parted in shock. Bonnie was shooting Caroline a look of cold indignity on my behalf. Caroline noticed and backed off a little, her expression losing some of its brightness. "And I say that," she trailed uncomfortably, "with…complete…sensitivity."

There was a momentary lull as I set my tea cup down, and surprisingly it was Damon that broke it. Well, not so surprisingly seeing as he was probably working on manipulating me into liking him or something to use me against Stefan.

"I'm sorry, Lena. I know what it's like…to lose both your parents. In fact, Stefan and I have watched almost every single person we've ever cared about die."

"We don't need to get into that right now, Damon," Stefan interrupted with a sort of warning look. I decided that this conversation was done with and cleared my throat loudly enough to catch everyone else's attention and clapped my hands together.

"Let's not be a Debbie Downer, Mr. Salvatore." I said smoothly, and then glanced at Bonnie and Stefan, who were the only two on my good list at the moment with a smile on my face. "So, we ready to start the movie?"

I had chosen the film very deliberately and let me tell you, the look on the Salvatore brothers' respective faces as the 1992 version of Bram Stoker's _Dracula_ came on screen was utterly and completely worth it.

_To be continued in Friday Night Bites II._


	6. FRIDAY NIGHT BITES II

_Friday Night Bites II_

When the movie finished, it was late and Caroline had fallen asleep and Bonnie said her goodbyes and left, leaving me alone with Stefan and Damon, who, despite being very good company respectively (in Damon's case, when he wasn't trying to eat, use, or kill you), where awful company while in each other's company.

I excused myself to see to the dishes and invited Stefan and Damon to relax.

"One more," Damon informed me as he strolled into the kitchen right before I closed over the dishwasher. I could have sworn I'd gotten them all, I thought with a frown.

"Thanks," I said a little wearily, moving to take it from him and apparently not tightening my grip on it quickly enough because it fell right out of my hand and plummeted to the floor.

He caught it, that quirky little satisfied smile on his face as he handed it back to me. He tilted his head to the side as I cautiously took it from him, careful not to drop it this time, and grinned tiredly up at him.

"Is impossible catching skills a Salvatore thing?" I asked him slyly once I'd gotten the giggles out of my system, waking up a little in case I'd need my wits for verbal sparring.

He didn't dignify my question with a response but instead just smiled a little wider and said, "I like you. You know how to laugh. And you make Stefan smile, which is something I haven't seen in a very, very long time."

And there goes that feeling of comfort. I glanced up at him suspiciously.

"Are you still on about that thing about me and your brother being a thing, Mr. Salvatore, or have you come to your senses and mean that statement in a purely platonic friendship way?"

He didn't answer, instead pouting like child denied ice cream.

"Are you ever going to call me Damon?" He asked deliberately pathetically, turning his pretty blue eyes on mine to what would have been devastating effect had I now known enough about him to know such an effect was intended.

"Tell you what, Mr. Salvatore. Answer one question for me, and I'll call you by your name."

It must have annoyed him to no end that I exaggerated the age difference between us by calling him mister because he agreed. "For you, Lena, _anything_," he promised suavely, making me roll my eyes.

I took a deep breath and asked the first thing that came to mind.

"What was she like? The woman who broke you and Stefan?"

I regretted asking as soon as I had done so, because his eyes flashed a little dangerously in the artificial light as he trained them on mine, presumably trying to see through me. And then he laughed a little and answered.

"She was beautiful. A lot like you in that department." He said, and I bit my tongue to keep from commenting on what an understatement the 'a lot like me' bit was. I wanted to hear exactly what he had to say. "She was…complicated," he continued. "And…selfish…and sometimes not very kind, but very sexy and seductive."

"So, on a scale of one to kill-your-double, how much do I look like her?" I asked, and at last caught him by surprise.

"What makes you think you look like her?" He questioned coquettishly, as if to distract me from my question. I raised an eyebrow at him in challenge, and he shrugged.

"I'd say a six or a seven, maybe. Just a little."

I mimicked his gesture.

"I get the feeling it's a bit more than that, but okay. As long as it doesn't make things awkward between us, I'm good." I said, and then paused in distaste. "I don't want to be that friend that constantly reminds you of your ex. It puts a hell of a damper on things."

He was watching me silently, judging me, probably, and I was in all likelihood falling short of whatever expectations I felt he'd set. Because I wasn't the real Elena, I was just some other person crammed into the pilot seat of her life.

"I'm sorry," I uttered lowly after a moment.

"What for, _Lena_?" He drawled, drawing out the syllables of my preferred name into two, distinct sounds: Lee-nah. I shrugged, pouring dish washing detergent into the little square it went to, closing the lid, closing the machine door, and starting it up.

"I don't know which one of you had her first, but she's not even here and she's still has the two of you pitted against each other. If she was ever really worth your time, she wouldn't have wanted that for you."

He stood abruptly, sneering down at me from his superior height.

"And what if that's what she did want?" He asked mulishly, daring me to answer.

I thought about it for a moment.

"Then I'm even more sorry, because an affair with a woman like that must have been the singular most intense, all-consuming thing you will ever experience, and I envy what you must have been while you lived it as much as I pity what crawled away when it was over."

He just kept _looking _at me and it made me want to smash something.

I turned away from him.

"Well, that's everything done in here, pretty much. Shall we head back to the living room?"

We found Stefan talking to Caroline, who was very much awake and pleased to be speaking with him, and the evening was over not long after that. When everyone had at last left my house, I mean Elena's house, it's odd, but I'm started to find the difference blurry…

I jolted upright where I had been reclining on my bed when I realized that there was something terribly wrong with me. I had been adapting to being, for lack of a better word, Elena far too quickly. I should have spent more time freaking out, hell, my pounding heartbeat should have raised suspicion whenever I told a teensy little white lie around Stefan at _least_.

The only conclusion I could come to was that I was being helped along by whatever it was that had caused me to replace Elena in her body. And that was not a comforting thought, because the question needed to be asked at that point: if something had _caused_ me to be here, it wasn't an accident or some strange twist of fate or even some wormhole thing, and if it wasn't _that_, then…well, to what end?

Plagued by such thoughts, I got ready for bed, making a mental note to definitely make time in the future to sew vervain patches on my underwear now that Damon had been invited to my house. I fell into a fitful sleep and dreamed.

And I mean, I had a really weird dream. I was talking to Stefan and then we were kissing and things started getting a little heated and then after I took my shirt off, he took his off and then he was Damon instead of Stefan and it was bizarre as hell and that was when I jolted awake, a frown on my face.

"Really?" I demanded of the air. "Of all the bloody people in the world, it had to be those two? It couldn't have been my Were-Bat? Or maybe Dapper-Suit-Man?"

Sadly, the air did not answer, but I saw the raven perched at my window-sill and frowned at it, hissing, "_You!_" before I could stop myself.

"I'm pinning this one on you, Edgar." I told it darkly, and I ended up staying awake and drawing a picture of it since it wasn't exactly going anywhere. The picture turned out to be a dud, (no surprise there, I'd always been better at drawing people, more specifically faces), so it was crumpled and tossed into the trashcan where it belonged.

I ended up lulling myself to sleep with the entertaining image of punching Damon in the face. It was incredibly satisfying.

I woke up the next morning feeling incredibly clear of mind and purpose, which was a refreshing change, because I normally rolled out of bed and my brain usually didn't catch up until I was halfway done with my shower, and I made a decision.

I decided to quit cheerleading, because a.) I was awful at it, I had zero pep, and even less interest in rooting for people like Tyler Lockwood, who I'd come to strongly dislike, b.) because that way I wouldn't have to deal with Caroline when she was in a mood, which she currently was in, and c.) because…well, because it just wasn't my thing, and if Elena wanted to continue doing it, which I highly doubted, she could resume it when she got back.

There was apparently a game that the cheerleaders were supposed to perform in that day, which I went to anyway because we didn't have things like that in secondary school back home. I bumped into Stefan shortly after I got there and, after making small-talk for a few minutes, found myself in for a pleasant surprise:

"I hope you don't think this is too soon, or too weird," he started, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a pretty little box that was vaguely familiar, "but I…I wanted you to have this. It's something that I've had forever…think of it as a thank you for all the encouragement and support you've given me. I'd very much like if you'd wear it, for me, for…good luck."

He opened the box to show me the necklace inside and my mouth popped open in recognition. It was Elena's necklace. Like, the _vervain_ necklace.

"It's so pretty!" I exclaimed, biting my lip as I drew it out of the box and admired it. "Shouldn't you, er, save this for a girlfriend, or something?"

I wonder what it was he saw in my probably awkward face because he closed my hand over it, making my cheeks pink because he took a step closer to do so, and said firmly, "I want _you_ to have it."

I could tell by his tone that he meant it, and I knew it was just because he was worried that Damon would compel me or something, so I decided to accept it.

"Thank you, Stefan!" I pronounced sincerely, and then fumbled with the clasp trying to put it on. I was so nervous for some reason, I couldn't quite manage it. I thought I did it once and moved my hands away only to feel it slip down the front of my shirt.

Stefan bit back a quiet laugh.

"Here," he said peaceably, "let me."

I dropped it into his open hand and turned back trustingly, piling my hair up on my head to keep it out of his way as he carefully slipped it around my neck and fastened the clasp with fingers far more nimble than mine.

"It smells nice," I observed, "like that tea I bought a few days ago. Supposedly it's good for helping clear your mind of foreign influences."

His head snapped up in surprise and he opened his mouth to comment (probably to ask what the tea was made of or something) but I cut him off with a hug.

"Thank you, Stefan. It's beautiful and I love it and I'll wear it every day."

He would have said something, I think, but at that moment, Tanner called all the football players away and he had to leave. I caught sight of Bonnie in her cheer uniform not to far away, and she didn't look otherwise occupied, so I went over to her and hung around until she too had been called away and everyone else was migrating towards a small stage.

Tanner appeared to be worshipping at the altar of Stefan throughout a large portion of his little speech, and then everyone's attention was elsewhere on a fight that had broken out. Of course, it was only natural that Jeremy and that insufferable wanker, Tyler, were at the heart of it. It was Stefan who broke the fight up (with help from Matt), which I thanked him profusely for, especially since he'd gotten injured doing it.

I _knew_ the glass had dug into his hand, but when he attempted to convince me that it must have been a trick of the light (honestly who would believe that?) I just kind of stared him down for a minute a little curiously, I think, and told him I was glad it was better.

The game itself was an interesting experience. I was permitted to go stand near the cheerleaders on the field before it started and had a little chat with Bonnie which ended in me realizing, suddenly, that I'd left my phone in the car, which I hastily went to retrieve.

Lo and behold, when I was so sure I was one-hundred percent alone, who should I turn around and nearly have a heart attack from being startled by?

"Damon!" I nearly yelped in surprise. "We have got to quit running into each other like this."

His mouth quirked into a little smile.

"You called me Damon," he pointed out smugly, making me roll my eyes at his immaturity.

"It's your name, isn't it? And I told you that if you answered my question I'd start using it." I answered, and then asked as an afterthought, "What are you doing here anyway?"

He made a little show of glancing around discreetly, dropping his voice to a whisper and confessed, "I'm hiding from Caroline."

"You can't hide from Caroline. Well, you can, but you'd need super senses and super speed and possibly an invisibility cloak." I informed him with a smirk, resisting the urge to add that two out of three wasn't that bad. "Wait, _why_ are you hiding from her, anyway?"

"I need a break," he admitted so tiredly I actually almost believed he was just some bloke with a chatty girlfriend. "She talks more than I can listen…"

"Caroline's my friend," I interrupted warily, "and loyalty is one of the few virtues I can be accused of possessing, so I'm going to have to stop you right there. If there's anything you want to get of your chest that doesn't stray into the territory of bashing my other friends, I'm all ears, mate. If not…"

I shrugged.

"Loyalty like that is admirable," Damon drawled in the same tone he had used when I met him to 'compliment' his brother. I rolled my eyes.

"You don't keep stock by it now, but maybe when I say the same thing to someone talking about what a twat you are you'll appreciate it."

"Duly noted. I'm sorry if I'm making you uncomfortable. That's just not my intention."

"Of course it is," I retorted with a wry grin. "Admit it, you probably love getting me riled up. Aside from the fact that I obviously amuse you somehow, it has the added bonus of pissing off your brother. This right here is probably the highlight of your evening."

"You might be right," he said easily, shrugging, "but I'm not the only one trying to play off my intentions." I dreaded to think.

"Alright then, what is it you think _I_, of all people, am hiding?" I inquired, amused.

"You want me," he accused knowingly, "I get to you. You're drawn to me. You think about me even when you don't want to think about me. I bet you've even _dreamed_ of me."

"I don't know what to say," I began, dumbfounded by his presumption. "I can't decide if I need to seek you immediate professional help for your wild delusions, or if it's safe to skip that step and simply laugh myself into a coma. Are you usually this off the mark with your theories, or are you just exceptionally off today?"

I paused for a moment.

"Although, I _have_ dreamt of you before. It was really quite bizarre. For whatever ungodly reason, I was having a snog with your brother. As if that wasn't bad enough, at some point right before I woke up, severely perturbed, he turned into _you_. Not quite sure where that came from, my subconscious usually has better taste."

"You liked it," Damon countered, and then paused as if deciding something on a whim, "And right now…you want to kiss me."

I stared blankly and enjoyed the feeling of not being compelled, which I would be sure to enjoy countless more times in the future. Well, not that I want people trying to compel me all the time, but when they do, I will enjoy seeing them fail.

I was so lost in my own thoughts, I didn't realize his face had been getting progressively closer until his nose brushed ever so lightly against mine and I reflexively slammed my fist into his jaw in a nasty uppercut. And then felt kind of bad about it.

"Christ, Damon, are you alright?" I demanded, hurriedly checking him for damage before dropping my hands from his face completely because, well, of course he wasn't hurt. And if he _had_ been hurt, he wasn't anymore. "You seem okay, anyway…"

"Is that _concern_ I hear from the girl who punched me?" Damon asked sarcastically, and I pursed my lips. Funnily enough, I suddenly felt better about hitting him in the face.

"You were being a dick, Damon. You deserved that for trying to bully me into snogging you." I notified him promptly, and then hesitated a moment. "However…you are also my friend, so you deserve to have me panicking and feeling guilty. That's how friendship works. It means that you can be as much of a dick as you like, it's in your nature anyway, and I'll still feel bad and want to make you feel better after I've snapped and broken your nose."

I dusted off my shirt, straightened my necklace, and jabbed a thumb at the stadium.

"Now, I'm heading back to watch your brother play." I informed him matter-of-factly. "You can either stay here and be Broody-Leather-Jacket-Man all by yourself, or you can come with me and watch the game and possibly, if you're feeling generous, explain the rules because I know next to bloody nothing about American football."

He considered it for a moment and then said, "I'll catch up."

I rather doubted he would but shrugged and told him to please himself and went back. The game passed in a blur, and as I expected, I didn't see him again. I left my seat when the game was over and noticed Tanner was nowhere to be seen but thought little of it.

I almost wished I had because the police and animal control showed up while I waited for Stefan and took Mr. Tanner's body away on a stretcher. I got the feeling, somehow, that he was already dead. It set a chill down my spine and I waited for Stefan with my back to a wall, and found myself praying that even though I wasn't Elena, that I had maybe made friends with Damon enough that he wouldn't come back for a snack and find me.

When Stefan at last emerged, I jogged up to him and threw my arms around his neck, burying my face in his shoulder. He held me gently as I shook in his arms, stroking my hair with careful hands as I mumbled something incoherent about the 'animal attacks' into his shirt.

It was the first actual character death I had experienced as Elena, and it was horrifying. I mean, I had known that Mr. Tanner was going to die, that's why Alaric replaced him, but…it seemed so abrupt. I'd forgotten that Damon was the bad guy in the beginning, the monster. Was I supposed to change him? Was that even possible? Elena had done it, but she was _Elena._

I didn't even realize I was crying until Stefan was shushing me reassuringly, drawing back so that he could place his hands on my cheeks.

"Hey, hey, calm down Lena. It's okay," he murmured reassuringly, and I sniffled pathetically.

"I'm so sorry," I said in shame, "I didn't mean to just…I'm glad you weren't hurt earlier."

Changing the subject had always worked well for me in the past, so why not now?

"I'm fine," Stefan assured me, holding his palm out as proof. I nodded slowly, staring at there the cut had been. I cleared my throat softly after a moment, glancing away.

"We should get home. It's funny, because the…animal…that attacked Vicki and Mr. Tanner is still out there and yet, I feel so safe around you. You're magic, Stefano!" I exclaimed in a sadly more subdued way than I normally would have. "But we should really get home because while I don't doubt your ability to deal with your run-of-the-mill, garden-variety threats, I think whatever it is that's attacking people is a badder type of bogeyman."

The corner of his mouth twitched upwards and I blinked, finding myself suddenly swept up in a hug I hadn't initiated. He tucked my head beneath his chin as he held me, and there was something about the action and the way he fingered a strand of my hair that turned it from a simple hug to an actual embrace.

It scared me in ways I didn't want to admit.

I didn't say anything after that, just basked in the support and strength of the man who was definitely my best friend as Bonnie was Elena's, and went home with the knowledge that Stefan would protect me, always, even if we weren't dating like he and Elena were supposed to be. The evening had put the fear of Damon into me, and sleep that night was long in coming and uneasy once it came.

I woke once during the night, touching a hand to my cheek in quiet terror. I could have sworn I had felt someone's hand brush against my face.

I never got back to sleep again; I curled onto my side and was consumed by my thoughts until morning came and it was time to face the new day.

_To be continued in Family Ties._


	7. FAMILY TIES

_Family Ties_

I walked down the stairs the next morning to find Jenna staring down the telly, muttering darkly under her breath as she watched the news. I raised an eyebrow as I caught what it was, precisely, that she was saying.

"Scum-ball…" She tested, and discarded in favor of, "scum-bucket."

"Aunt Jenna, are you alright?" I asked, a little perplexed.

She jumped apparently not having heard me come down the stairs, and nodded vigorously. "Sorry, I just…" She began to excuse, and then shook her head, opting instead to narrow her eyes and go back to staring down the news anchor.

"Him," she said at last, nodding at the telly as if to specify which of the abundance of hims there were in the house was the one she was talking about. "Also known as Logan Scum-fell."

I detected in her voice something that in my previous twenty-three years of life pre-Elena I had known to be the voice used almost exclusively by my friends to refer to…

"Is he your ex?" I questioned, blinking.

Jenna nodded.

"That, my dear Elena, is the reason I moved away from Mystic Falls." She intoned darkly, her attention still focused on the rather unimpressive man reporting the news. I voiced this opinion of him rather drolly and added that she could have done so much better.

I busied myself with the contents of a box I had retrieved from Mrs. Lockwood, which Elena's mother had apparently agreed to loan to the Founder's Council for their Heritage Display, which, coincidentally, since it meant so much to Elena's mom, I decided to attend to at least let Elena be there physically at the event her mother had put so much work into.

I figured that way, when she came back, she'd have a picture or something to commemorate it. I don't know, it was just a thought…

Jeremy had the audacity to ask how much Jenna and I thought the stuff would be worth and was quickly shut down by the two of us, because there would most certainly be no pawning of Elena's parents' stuff. I closed the box right in time to hear the doorbell ring.

It was my best friend in the whole world.

"Stefan!" I cried in a hushed whisper, hoping not to draw Jenna's attention to us (because I didn't want her to see me ask the question I wanted to ask or make assumptions about it) and threw my arms around him in greeting. "Just the man I wanted to see!"

He raised an eyebrow, obviously amused by my exuberance, and allowed me to take his hand and practically drag him up the stairs to my room, where I sat him down and promptly began pacing like a general on the eve of battle.

"Stefan, do you love me?" I asked out of nowhere, stopping in the middle of the room to look at him with Elena's innocent doe eyes, clasping my hands gently together and resting them softly against my chest, the picture of tremulous sincerity.

He stiffened slightly, his eyes stuck on mine for a moment before he awkwardly cleared his throat and asked in a rather tight voice, "What is this about, Lena?"

I bounded over to the bed and sat myself cross-legged next to him, smiling sweetly.

"You do love me, don't you?" I pressed in my nicest, most inviting voice. "Enough to maybe put on a suit for me? Enough to conceivably wear that suit to the Founder's Party? Enough, possibly, to be my, er, date?"

My voice had been getting progressively higher as it got more sugary, and I ended my endlessly appealing plea in a bit of a squeak. Stefan laughed suddenly, and then stopped as if he had surprised himself. (Given that boy's ridiculous _gravitas_, I'd hardly find it shocking if he had). I fluttered my eyelashes at him, still using the old Elena Gilbert patented wide, innocent brown eyes trick to ideally cause him to pity me so much he'd agree.

When he'd collected himself at last, he turned very seriously to me and said, "I would be honored to accompany you, Miss Gilbert."

"Thank you, Stefan!" I cried in delight, and then frowned suddenly, looking him over with appraising eyes. He fidgeted slightly under my stare.

"What is it, Lena?" He asked after letting me shamelessly eyeball him for a moment.

"I was just wondering what you look like in a suit," I answered pensively, and then gave him a double thumbs up. "I bet you'll look great!"

He smirked a little at that, modestly informed me that he could "pull one off."

"So," I chirped, the picture of satisfaction at having secured a survival-buddy for the evening, "have you ever been before?"

I got a vague, noncommittal answer in response and he deftly changed the topic.

We hung out for a while, and then he went home. I hung about the house, bored and wishing I had some video games to play or something, before settling down to read the latest book Stefan had brought me from the library, which was, enchantingly, _Pride and Prejudice_. (Yes, I had returned _This Side of Paradise_ earlier that week after reading it through twice). I read in peace until Tyler came over to pick up the box full of Elena's parents' things.

Unfortunately Jeremy came to the door too, and I had to break up a brewing row between both boys. Then I was alone with my book until Bonnie came over to get ready.

"Delicate flower versus naughty vixen?" She pondered aloud, comparing what looked like from where I stood in the kitchen two bottles of nail varnish.

"Both," I answered promptly, drying my hands with a paper towel (I had been washing them) and sitting with her at the table. "Every girl's got a bad girl in them, so why not?"

She giggled at my expression as I waggled my eyebrows at her suggestively and left both the nail varnish on the table. Her expression fell a little, though, as she thought of something, and even though she shook her head a little very surreptitiously as if to clear it, I caught the movement and found myself wondering what was up.

"Bonnie, is there anything you need to tell me?" I asked her bluntly, a bit concerned by the way she had been biting her lip nervously when she first came. She looked more relaxed now than she'd been earlier, and I hoped that meant relaxed enough to talk to me.

"You're excited," she responded, obviously feeling a little on the spot. "You look happy. I don't want to ruin your night, not when you're all raring to go about your date."

I pursed my lips.

"So, basically, you've heard something bad about Stefan and you want to tell me, but you think whatever it is you have to say is bad enough that it could ruin my evening and you don't want to do that," I guessed accurately. Bonnie made a face that told me I'd hit the mark.

"Would it make you feel better if I told you that I knew without any doubt whatsoever that Stefan was trustworthy? That I could tell you, completely surely, that I can trust Stef with my life?" I returned, my voice so steady Bonnie nodded slowly, hesitantly.

"I'd want to know why," she said after a moment, "but…I believe you, and it does help."

If I told her about what I knew right now she'd think I'd gone mad, and that was probably not the best option I had available.

"Tell you what," I promised sincerely, "when you think you're going crazy because of a few candles, I'll explain it."

"Candles?" She asked with a raised eyebrow. I nodded.

"Just…remember how you were seeing those numbers and then…you know…"

A look of deep unease settled on her face, and I put my arms around her carefully and tried to soothe her with a few, quiet reassurances. "It's not your fault, Bonnie. How could you have connected the dots like that? It was impossible, and hopefully you won't have to deal with something like that every again."

"It scares me," she mumbled into my shoulder as I stroked her hair pityingly.

"I know," I said, and then pulled away, keeping a hand on her shoulder. "But it will be okay."

She smiled a little then, a sort of half-smile that wanted to believe me and then said, "Candles, huh? And then you'll tell me why you trust your new boyfriend?"

I groaned.

"He's not my boyfriend, Bon. We're just friends. And yeah, as soon as you get what I mean by candles, I'll let you know. And I get this funny feeling that'll be sooner rather than later."

Our conversation when to lighter topics after that and we relocated to my room until Mrs. Lockwood rang and told me in a tizzy that there was a piece missing in the box I'd sent over, a fob watch or something. With a sinking, cautious feeling in my stomach, I went to go ask Jeremy if he had it, and hoped that if he did he hadn't been planning on selling it.

"Jeremy, I just got an odd phone call from Mrs. Lockwood," I said to him after gently pushing back his earphones so that he could hear me. "She said the fob watch that Mom put on the list was missing. Please tell me you have it; I know its yours, and that you weren't exactly keen to let the Lockwood's borrow it for the Heritage Display, but I need to know that it's safe because it's meant for you and if it's missing I have to get it back."

He looked away from me for a moment.

"Yeah, I have it." He admitted, and I heaved a sigh of relief.

"Good. That's good. You…I'm sorry, Jeremy, but I have to ask. You're not…you're not selling it for money for drugs, are you?" I asked meekly, and anger flashed across his face.

"I wouldn't do that!" He snarled angrily, and I held up my hands in a gesture of surrender.

"I believe you, Jer, but I had to ask. I'm sorry for doubting you." I apologized, not having meant to insult him and secretly very glad that he wasn't because, well, I hadn't been too sure. "I'll…I'll tell Mrs. Lockwood I couldn't find it and it's probably still somewhere in the attic."

He didn't answer, only watched me defensively as I left.

It's funny, but I understood completely where he was coming from. I'd been my father's only child; I had two brothers, yes, but they were technically my half-siblings. I'd been the only one left in all my da's side of the family to inherit _his_ watch when he'd passed away.

That watch had been a twelve-year-old girl's precious treasure, it had been the only source of comfort she would draw from because she'd felt her mother and brothers and friends couldn't understand. I understood Jeremy's feelings about that watch, his rightful inheritance, better than he probably could have imagined.

I shook off those thoughts before heading back to Bonnie, plastering a grin on my face as I returned to the room and then we were both getting dressed and putting on make-up and doing our hair and laughing and having fun.

I wore a dress I was pretty sure was the one Elena had worn to the party, which I vaguely remembered from the series because I was sure that Stefan drugged Damon with vervain by spiking Caroline's drink with it. I had been faithfully straightening my hair each day, but quite frankly, I couldn't be bothered any more and had decided to curl it for a change of pace, and pinned up in a lovely, twisting up-do that left tendrils of curls framing my face.

As a last minute touch, I nestled a coral-colored Hibiscus flower I had deliberately gone by the florist's to get into the base of my bun at the left side, and then smiled at my Elena's reflection in the mirror. She looked quite nice, if I say so myself.

I didn't wear jewelry save for the necklace Stefan gave me.

Bonnie and I hung out, looking gorgeous together (we totally did) and then waited for Stefan, who was going to be joining us. Technically speaking, both Bonnie and Stefan were my dates, because I had thoughtlessly asked Stefan without giving any thought to who Bonnie would attend the party with, and I certainly didn't want her to go alone, so the three of us were going to go together. I figured Caroline was going with Damon, anyway, so there was no one left out.

"Stefan! Damn, son, you look great!" I called teasingly upon opening the door for him.

He smiled.

"You look beautiful," he said quietly, as if he were afraid I would hear him say it, and then cleared his throat and amended a little louder, "Both of you. You both look amazing."

"Thanks, Steffy," I responded with a grin as Bonnie gave him her own pleased thank you. I looped one of my arms with his and the other with Bonnie's, stepping into the cool, late afternoon air with both of my dates at their respective side. "Shall we?"

When we got to the Lockwood's home, the party was in full swing, so to speak, and there was a ridiculously long line in front of the house. I thought I saw Damon and Caroline ahead of us, but it was difficult to tell because of all the people.

Mrs. Lockwood greeted us at the door; I turned on all of the gentility metaphorically beaten into me back at the upscale academy I had attended secondary in and surprised her, I think, with my exquisite manners.

Bonnie ditched Stefan and I in favor of…I don't know what she was doing, exactly, but she went off with a vague "I'll see you later," and left us to ourselves. I really wanted to see all the stuff on display in the house, especially since some of the stuff had belonged to the Gilbert family, so Stefan and I headed in.

I saw Jenna inside, she looked fabulous, and I saw that Logan Fell guy she'd been staring down with narrowed, disdainful eyes on the telly and have to admit, I was rather impressed with their not-really-chemistry.

I said as much to Stefan who glanced up at them again, right in time to catch Jenna give Logan a sort of look and disagree, saying: "Oh, _yes I have_. I'm _meaner _now."

The Fell bloke had just been saying that she hadn't changed a bit, and the way he watched her as she retorted sassily and flounced away with her beautiful, loose curls and her I'm-better-than-you slight swinging of her hips was hilarious.

"Chemistry?" Stefan echoed, amusement written all over his face.

I nodded with a smirk.

"Look at him. He looks like he'd like nothing better than to shag Aunt Jenna on one of those display cases." I noted primly, and then frowned. "If he hurts her, I'm going to have a temper tantrum Were-Bat would cringe at, take a hint from Take-Me-Out-To-The-Ball-Game, and have at him with a baseball bat."

"I'm sure you will," Stefan assured me easily, as though he sincerely doubted it but was indulging me anyway, and then it was his turn to frown, a little nonplussed.

"The truth is out!" I cried before he could question my strangeness, pointing to a hand-written document on display. "You have been to a Founder's Party before!"

"I told you I had, once, when I was younger," he stated a little curiously, then saw what I was looking at and grew a little rigid.

"Look," I said, pointing. "You and Damon, right there."

He seemed a bit flustered, as if he was afraid I would randomly figure out his secret just because of some names on a page. Bit silly, that. I mean, who would actually make the jump from same name to oh-my-God-he's-a-vampire? Old family names is a much more plausible and believable excuse.

"The original Salvatore brothers," Damon interjected smoothly, sidling up behind us with Caroline at his side. "Our ancestors."

"Lies!" I accused with a playful smile, knowing that it actually was, in fact, a lie. "And I refuse to believe otherwise, because the mental image of Steffy looking all dapper in period costume amuses me far more than it should."

"Dapper, hmm?" Damon mused, leaning forward a little. "What about me?"

I sniffled.

"In the scarlet waistcoat, maybe, but it's hard picturing you all dressed up. You look silly in your casual clothes. I blame the cream-colored bowler hat." I said honestly, and then blinked at the fact that I _had_ seen him very clearly in my head. How on earth I remembered that, but couldn't remember the basic order of the plot, I had no idea.

I turned to Caroline to avoid his suddenly burning stare.

"So, you had a spin on the dance floor yet, Care?" I asked in a friendly way, and she frowned.

"Damon," she answered pointedly with a look at him, "won't dance with me."

He ignored the look and happily hummed confirmation of that statement. She pursed her lips slightly before turning back to me with a charming smile.

"Could I just borrow _your_ date?" She asked sweetly, and I blinked.

"Well, you'd have to ask him?" I replied a little baffled at why she would ask _me_ that instead of him. "I mean, I'm perfectly alright with it, but it's up to him, obviously."

Stefan faced her politely and excused himself, saying, "I…don't really dance."

"Oh, sure he does!" Damon interrupted, clearly intent on being his usual prat self. "You should see him, the waltz, the jitterbug, the moonwalk. He does it all!"

"I'm not really that good, might step on your toes," Stefan lied with a polite expression of apology on his face. Apparently, Caroline really wanted to dance.

"Sorry, but I won't take no for an answer!" She exclaimed vivaciously, and dragged him off.

I watched them go, admittedly a little amused.

"And then there were two," I murmured dramatically, and rested my elbow on Damon's shoulder. "Fancy a little walkabout?"

"With the most beautiful woman here?" Damon voiced smoothly. "Of course."

I rolled my eyes and, without further comment mainly because I didn't want to encourage him, we were on our way. We walked around the various 'exhibits' set up and marveled at this and that, well, I appreciated the history of some of the artifacts and Damon just sort of smirked at me, and then we were done and heading slowly back towards the exit.

"I want to apologize to you," he said out of nowhere, turning a falsely sincere expression at me as we stood in the very same room I'd last seen Jenna in, "for being a world-class jerk."

I laughed.

"No, you don't" I told him easily, "and I don't expect you to. Be yourself, Damon. I like you better that way."

"The other night I tried to kiss you," he insisted. "There's no excuse."

I rolled my eyes.

"I punched you. We're even."

He frowned a little at my easy-going attitude but went back to smirking rather quickly. The lull in conversation wasn't unpleasant, but before it could go on for much longer, I decided I wanted to get out of the rather stuffy house and into the evening air.

"Come on then," I instructed, gently tugging on the sleeve of his jacket. "Let's go outside, have a dance. If you're feeling charitable and at all inclined, of course."

His smirk grew challenging and just a little smug.

"I wouldn't dance with Caroline," he reminded me with a lazy shrug of his shoulders as he stuffed his hands in his pockets. "What makes you think I'll dance with you?"

I scoffed playfully.

"You ask that like you haven't already decided to humor me, but I'll answer anyway. Firstly, it'll irritate Stefan. Secondly, it'll irritate Stefan. That probably satisfies you so much it merits being on your list twice."

Damon nodded slowly as if he were weighing my words with the utmost gravity, trying and not quite succeeding at hiding a grin behind his serious face.

"Thirdly," I continued thoughtfully with a smirk of my own, "since you're the one that tried to have it on with me the other night, you'll likely want to take advantage of the fact that this'll be the only time I'll ever willingly invite you put your hands on my person, ever."

He raised an eyebrow as if to ask me if he could consider that a challenge, but I didn't return the expression or give him a chance to speak.

"Fourthly," I interjected perhaps a little hastily, "because Stef will _know_ what reason number three is because he knows _you_ that well and thus will be even _more _irritated, and lastly, because deep down you are dying to get out there and party like it's 1864."

"Well," he said sarcastically, "you sure have me convinced."

He adopted a thoughtful sort of look.

"Yeah, you had me at 'it'll irritate Stefan.' Let's go."

And so, I ended up dancing with Damon Salvatore, which was strangely fun in itself, to say nothing of the hilarity of the running commentary he provided on other guests.

I ended up leaning on him more than might have been appropriate to keep myself from doubling over with laughter as he happily criticized this man and his so very obviously false hair, that woman over there with the unfortunate roses-the-size-of-cabbages dress, and recounted sad tales such as that of the boy so very obviously ditched by his date with wicked glee. I liked funny Damon a lot. Much better than I liked fake-sorry Damon.

We danced until I confessed I was dying of thirst, and then were reunited with Stef and Caroline at the drink table.

"Lena," Stefan said with what might have been a little tense relief in his voice as he wordlessly offered me a drink. I took it with a smile and thanks. He turned to his brother, who was not-so-innocently grinning at him.

"Drink, Damon?" He asked, holding a glass out to him.

"No thanks, I'll pass," Damon answered casually, and initiated another stare-off between them.

I rolled my eyes, so done with both of them.

"Have another dance in you, Stef? I wouldn't mind another turn round the room."

"Absolutely," Stefan answered, and I grinned and let him lead me back to the dance floor.

Stefan and I danced for like, three more songs, chatting pleasantly about this and that and 'oh, I hope my brother didn't drive you bonkers?' 'No, no, he was surprisingly entertaining!' and the like. I pointed out that he hadn't stepped on my toes once and he sheepishly 'confessed' that he only said that because he didn't fancy dancing with Caroline.

It was fun and relaxing, but three songs is a bit much, especially considering I had danced with Damon before that, and I was about ready for a break. I excused myself from the floor and told Stefan I'd catch up with him in a bit. I wanted to find Bonnie, and he did seem preoccupied, at any rate.

I bumped into Caroline in the ladies, where I had gone to freshen up.

"Hey," I said in greeting, and then began to rummage through my bag looking for my lipstick.

"Hey," she returned, touching up her own lip gloss.

I watched her out of the corner of my eye, wanting desperately to peek under the scarf she had to confirm that Damon had bitten her. I knew that she dated Damon and he had her under compulsion, but I didn't know when, exactly, that happened. Although…I was grimly certain that, as short a time as they had been 'dating,' it was more than long enough.

I had been debating slipping her vervain; if I gave it to her now and he realized he couldn't compel her, he might hurt her. I hadn't been able to think of any ways to get her it without her suspecting at any point before now, mainly because I had apparently fallen out of her good graces. I seemed to be back in them, now, if not a favorite of the realm, but I had a sinking feeling that giving her vervain now could be a mistake.

I could see the bite mark on her shoulder under her little lacy knit cardigan. Anyone could, if they were looking.

She caught me staring and frowned.

"What?"

"Nothing," I answered, and then told her sincerely, "you look very nice."

She smiled and said thank you, and I excused myself to look for Bonnie, but I felt something urge me to have a little chat with Damon. The bite mark on Caroline's shoulder upset me enough that I followed it, and I found him standing near the drinks where I'd left him.

He smiled a little when he saw me.

"Lena! To what do I owe the pleasure?"

I stopped where I was, suddenly uncomfortable because he actually did sound a little pleased to see me, in his own twisted, sarcastic way. It took the ire right out of me and left cool rationality behind. I had to be careful with my words.

"Damon," I started seriously, rubbing at my bare arm, feeling a bit chilled. "Do you know anything about the weird scar on Caroline's shoulder?"

His face went utterly blank.

"What are you talking about?" He asked, as if he had no clue what I was talking about. He was certainly better than Stefan at the what-I'm-not-a-vampire thing, but I knew better.

"It's a bite mark." I said quietly, uneasily, and before he could say anything, I turned around and left him, feeling oddly disappointed.

I looked for Bonnie for a while, but I couldn't find her. Eventually, I texted her and got a message back saying that she had left early and we needed to talk, whatever that meant, so I decided, due to a feeling of apprehension in my stomach, to go find Caroline.

Find her I did, and she was very clearly unwell. I dreaded to think that Damon might have gone after her because I opened my stupid mouth.

"Caroline, what happened?" I asked worriedly, putting my hands on her shoulders in an attempt to calm her down some. She wouldn't answer the question.

"I'm fine. I'm fine."

She wasn't fine, she was trembling like a leaf in the wind, and I couldn't leave her. I texted Stefan to apologize for leaving and told him something had come up and took her home.

I had forgotten that all Mystic Falls parties end in disaster, and I had a nasty feeling that I hadn't seen the worst result of the night before it was over.

_To be continued in You're Undead to Me._


	8. YOU'RE UNDEAD TO ME

_You're Undead to Me_

I had a quiet few, utterly blissful days to myself after that, during which I actually didn't see anyone that I knew. As much as I loved my (Elena's) friends, it was nice to have some of the time to myself I had been so accustomed to.

These happy thoughts in mind, I nearly skipped on my way to the bathroom, opened the door, and…found someone else in it.

"Oh. Hello, Vicki." I said, a little perplexed but rapidly coming to the conclusion that I would be happier not putting too much thought into what I knew my (Elena's) little brother was up to. "Give me a shout when you're done, okay?"

She nodded, toothbrush still in mouth, looking perhaps a bit surprised by my friendly ease, and I left her in peace to finish up. Instead, I went downstairs, where I found my (Elena's) aunt sitting at the kitchen table.

"I see Jeremy had company over last night," I drawled with a smirk, "and this morning."

Jenna bit back a laugh.

"They could be craftier about it, at least make an _effort_ to sneak her in and out," she criticized, and I shared in her nostalgic amusement. Too true. I remembered the days of my own youth…which I was apparently living again. Strange, that.

"Oh, and just so you know," she continued, suspiciously casually, "I won't be home for dinner."

I blinked, reviewed what I knew about her, and then understood.

"So he got to you, then, that Fell man?" I inquired, intrigued. She nodded, and I smirked. "Stefan owes me an ice-cream."

She raised an eyebrow.

"You were betting on my love life?"

I shrugged.

"He was looking at you as if he wanted to shag you in a broom cupboard, of course I was going to take that wager. Stefan thought you'd turn him down because it was so obvious you hated him, but, aside from the fact that the man strikes me as a smarmy wanker you shouldn't trust as far as you could throw him, the two of you have chemistry."

"So you're basically telling me you stalked me at the party last night and spent _actual time _discussing his chances before you bet on my love life."

"It's just a little wager, Aunt Jen," I said innocently, "and I've been craving ice-cream."

I went off to take my shower after that (Vicki never did give me a shout, how impolite of her) and then headed off to school.

When I got there, one of the first things I noticed was that Caroline seemed to be back to normal, maybe. It didn't seem right, not after how terrified she had been when I last saw her, and Bonnie and I were both in agreement that she was in denial.

"Oh," I said, remembering suddenly, "what was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

She had texted me saying we need to talk, and I'd forgotten all about it in my worry for Caroline, as Bonnie apparently had also. She started, eyes widening and opened her mouth to speak, but Stefan's untimely arrival cut her off.

"Hey," he said a little unsurely, as if he were afraid I might be angry with him.

"Hi!" I chirped, perhaps a little confusedly, and Bonnie, looking between us, decided to make herself scarce and excused herself rather lamely before scurrying off.

"How are you?" I asked when it seemed as if he wasn't going to say anything.

He looked relieved.

"Good, thanks. I, uh, brought you a book." He said, and dug _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ out of his bag and handed it to me as a peace offering. My eyes must have been sparkling.

"I love you!" I cried, throwing my arms around his neck. He stiffened, moving his hands cautiously to my waist before hesitantly saying, "You're not…mad?"

I blinked.

"Why would I be mad?"

We were interrupted by Caroline, this time, who opened a hole knew topic with a rather blunt, "Stefan, where's Damon? He has some serious apologizing to do."

I knew something was up immediately as Stefan shifted where he stood and said, after a moment, "He's gone, Caroline."

"When's he coming back?" Caroline asked a little persistently as I began to piece together what happened. Damon, after all, would hardly have left of his own accord.

"He's not coming back," Stefan answered almost grimly. "I'm sorry."

He left the conversation then, leaving me, Caroline, and _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ alone in the hallway. Caroline looked…she looked almost devastated.

"Hey," I said gently. "It's probably for the best, you know."

She looked as if she might cry.

"I know."

And then I was alone in the hallway, staring after her retreating back. It was a trend that would be continued throughout the day. Me being alone, I mean. Not staring after Caroline's retreating back. Stefan didn't have much to say during class which was hardly surprising since our shared teachers seemed to be in taskmaster mode, but he did ask me if I'd like to meet up at the Grill in the afternoon. Having nothing better to do, I agreed.

I got there at five after four, and found Matt playing at the billiards tables.

"Hey, Matt!" I greeted cheerfully. "What's up?"

Stefan had been nowhere in sight, so I figured why not try to patch things up with Elena's childhood friend while I waited?

"Hey, Elena," he answered cheerfully, "nothing much. You meeting someone?"

I nodded, glancing around idly for Stefan.

"Yeah, Stefan, but I have a feeling he's going to be late. I think he's been having trouble at home," I speculated, cringing mentally as I realized this was in all likelihood the time during which Stefan had kept Damon locked up on vervain in the basement.

"Wanna play a game or two?" He asked, and I inwardly panicked.

"Do you know how to play snooker?" I asked.

He shook his head, a little glimmer of interest in his eyes, although that might have been born of the fact that Elena had avoided him like the plague and as far as he knew was suddenly offering to spend time with him.

"Want to learn?"

Thankfully, he said yes and even better, he liked it. He caught on fairly quickly as I explained the rules to him, and commented on how much I'd improved. I laughed it off and told him to practice playing snooker so that maybe the next time he'd be able to beat me.

Elena had been able to play pool, something she and Matt had apparently very much enjoyed doing together. Also, I was better at it. Like, way better. But, I didn't know any game _but_ snooker, and certainly not whatever variations Matt and Elena had been used to.

I resolved, perhaps, to avoid playing billiards with Matt so as not to have to explain why I magically forgot games that Elena had probably learnt as a child.

I had just won my second game when Stefan finally showed up.

"I'm so, so sorry, Lena," he said in opening, and I waved the apology away. I was pretty sure I knew what he was dealing with and understood.

"It's fine," I answered cheerfully. "We didn't really agree on a time, anyway."

He continued to apologize, which I continued to wave away, and we kept on at that until an older man came over, staring at Stefan, and said, "I know you."

Stefan went rigid, and I felt bad for him, bad enough to intervene.

"You see, Steve?" I teased pointedly, emphasizing the fake name a little as I tossed an arm around him. "I told you, it's the hair. Every single person we've talked to today that knew your granddad swears up and down that you're his double at that age."

Turning back to the man with a sweet smile, I held out a hand.

"Hello, sir. I'm Elena. Steve's friend. I'm guessing you knew his Papa Stefan?" I asked innocently, so much so that the man's brow furrowed just a tad bit as he looked between Stefan and I and back suspiciously and perhaps a little confusedly.

Stefan had caught on and waved sheepishly at the man, looking every inch the awkward teenage boy.

"Hi. I'm Steve, although you probably knew that. Are you one of my grandpa's old drinking buddies?" He asked equally innocently, and the man slowly shook his head.

"No, sorry, I must be confusing you with someone else," he stated a little hurriedly as 'Steve' and I exchanged perplexed frowns and then scurried away. We watched him go for a minute, and then Stefan cleared his throat.

"Thank you for that," he said, raising an eyebrow in an unspoken question.

I shrugged. I had done it to stop him from having a freak-out over whether or not I would randomly guess he was an immortal vampire just because (as far as I knew in his mind) some random guy recognized him.

"No problem. You looked uncomfortable." I explained, and he nodded, slowly, and didn't say anything further.

We stood awkwardly together for a moment. He looked like he wanted to tell me something, but didn't know where to start and I didn't know how to help him. Neither of us said anything, and finally, I felt the need to break the silence.

"Wanna come over to my place?" I asked, since he seemed so uncomfortable where he was.

He nodded gratefully.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'd like that."

We had barely made it out of the building when he stopped me and then spoke, looking a bit more at ease than he had been earlier.

"Can I meet you there?" He said, and I blinked, cracking a grin.

"Sure," I replied, and then went home my own way.

To say that I was later surprised when Jeremy told me my 'guest' had arrived and I found Stefan in the kitchen, apparently hard at work, was a hell of an understatement.

"May I inquire as to the occasion?" I queried from the doorway, watching him slice up mozzarella cheese. I remembered this scene from the show but I couldn't figure out why it was still happening when, if I recalled correctly, it was a result of Elena's difficulty trusting him.

Due to my habit of cutting Damon off during his dropping-reasons-why-you-shouldn't-trust-Stefan sermons, I hadn't even learned Katherine's name from either brother. Of course, that was a moot point since I already knew it, but there was no reason for Stefan to feel like he needed to host a get-to-know-you-better dinner.

Especially when you considered the fact that we pretty much knew each other's tastes in literature by heart at this point and were steadily learning each other's music. We'd discussed everything under the sun, and I don't know what he and Elena had talked about during their time together, but I felt I knew him pretty well.

"Does there have to be an occasion?" He inquired lightly, and I giggled.

"Not specifically, but I still get the feeling there is one. What's up, Stef?"

He didn't answer right away, and when he finally said something, it was not in response to my question. "Jeremy told me you like Italian food," he informed me with a slight smile.

I did. It was then, watching him at work somewhat fascinated by the incredibly domestic scene, that I realized what he was doing.

"You're making caprese!" I exclaimed not with a little delight.

A smile pulled at his mouth.

"I thought maybe a little bit of antipasto to start us off and then, since you like to cook, we could make dinner together." He told me, phrasing it a little like a question. "Your brother wasn't sure what it was called, but he told me lately you'd taken to making a sort of tomato and cheese appetizer. It wasn't too hard to figure out."

"It's one of my favorite snacks," I confessed a little shyly and then, emboldened by his obvious amusement, nicked the first piece of tomato he had paired with mozzarella and drizzled olive oil and a little basil over and ate it. It was good. "I would love to make dinner with you."

And make dinner we did! Well, we sat down and ate the caprese first (which I ate a probably embarrassing amount of), and then we made pasta which was really, really fun and rewarding because Stefan was some sort of bloody miracle worker in the kitchen, probably from decade upon decade of practice, and then we sat down to eat.

"So," I started, twirling a bit of pasta round my fork, "favorite Fitzgerald book? I meant to ask you before, but we got a little carried away discussing _This Side of Paradise_."

"Gatsby," he answered immediately, "definitely Gatsby."

"Fitzgerald at his finest," I murmured, picking up another forkful of pasta and eating it. "Favorite character?"

It was how we always started our discussions, picking favourites until our opinion differed. In this case, it seemed to differ off the bat.

"Nick. Yours?"

"Daisy," I said, shaking my head playfully at him. "Nick? Really?"

Stefan shrugged.

"I identify with him." He said simply, and then smirked a little. "Daisy_? Really?_"

I stuck my tongue out at his mimicry of my earlier question.

"I identify with her," I answered, rolling my eyes. He raised an eyebrow in challenge of that statement and I sighed dramatically.

"Okay," I admitted, "I don't really. I like her because I pity her. Admittedly, I pity most of the characters in the novel for various reasons, but there's something about Daisy that strikes me as _especially _pitiable."

I paused, thinking.

"I think it might be the fact that she's starving for love and attention and yet won't do anything about it," I continued. "It's like she convinces herself she that she just _can't _do anything about it, simply because she was raised to think a certain way and is trapped within the conventions of the society she grew up in."

I grimaced.

"She's so used to money and so desperate for love, she makes herself miserable because while she has one, she can't have the other, and her love of status is what made her choose between the two in the first place."

"And her inability to find balance is what makes you feel sorry for her?" Stefan asked, leaning towards me in interest from his place at the table next to me.

I shook my head.

"I pity her because I don't think she ever fell in love, not _really_, because she couldn't reconcile her want for love with her love of money and status in the first place. And there's something terribly, terribly sad about that. It's like craving sunlight more than anything and not being able to open a window because you like the curtains too much to push them away."

I brushed a strand of hair from my face awkwardly when I realized how much I'd actually said and cleared my throat.

"Sorry, I got a little excited," I excused, a wry sort of grin on my face.

"Don't apologize," Stefan said seriously. "I like hearing your thoughts."

I was suddenly aware that we were awfully, awfully close. Perhaps next time we'd sit across from each other instead of adjacently around the corner of the table. I swallowed a little nervously and edged backwards in my chair.

"So!" I said brightly, as if I wasn't a little perturbed by his nearness. "It's your turn to explain what you like so much about Nick!"

He smiled faintly and then launched into a discourse on the things he appreciated most about Nick, and left out any mention of Jordan completely. Of course he identified with Nick, I thought as I listened. Of course he did, because as Nick was similar in some aspects to Stefan, Jordan Baker was a washed-out, grey Katherine exactly as he would have described her.

I went to bed once he left in hopes of getting some sleep before tomorrow. As usual, I hoped in vain.

_To be continued in You're Undead to Me II. _


	9. YOU'RE UNDEAD TO ME II

_You're Undead to Me II_

The next day was awkward. And by awkward, I mean I got roped into helping out at the 'Sexy Suds' Car Wash fundraiser by Caroline, who proceeded to spend more time than I would have thought she had available in her busy schedule expressing disapproval towards my clothes (or lack of lack thereof) and equally lacking 'spirit.'

Stefan came over during a brief break from the lecture during which Caroline was instructing me on how to run the booth, and she commented on _his_ lack of lack of clothing as well. Go figure.

"Did we just get scolded?" He questioned as Caroline flounced away.

"No, _you_ just got scolded. _I_ got lectured for like half-an-hour and that was my dismissal."

It's funny, because I had worn a swimsuit, a bikini I found in Elena's drawer, which was actually the reason I hadn't taken my clothes off. You see, I hadn't thought to vervain-patch Elena's swimwear, and I felt safer keeping my shorts on knowing I had a piece of vervain in the pocket, necklace aside.

Paranoid, I know, but I couldn't stop thinking that if a vampire ever compelled me to tell the truth, I'd probably blurt out the fact that I wasn't Elena first, so heavily did that secret weigh on my mind.

Stefan and I made an excellent car-washing team, but things were a little off. I mean, we were both acting like we normally did, but we weren't talking as much, and we had been fine the night before, except for towards the end there when we were sitting a little uncomfortably close. It was the only thing I could think of that might cause our slight awkwardness, but how on earth was I to bring that up in a conversation?

Answer: I wasn't.

We ran out of towels and such, and since we weren't talking anyway, I volunteered to go get some. I went to Caroline, who had me man the booth while she went and got what we needed from the school, and enjoyed the brief respite from standing.

My first customer was the man from the night before at the Grill.

"Twenty dollars is your total, sir," I chirped pleasantly, and looked up. "Oh! Hello! You're Steve's granddad's friend from yesterday, right?"

He shook his head.

"No, I…I might have met him, a long time ago, but that's all. I was mistaken."

No, he really wasn't, I thought, and instead put on a smile, glancing up at the older man a little shyly from beneath my eyelashes.

"I've known Steven Salvatore since kindergarten," I lied sweetly. "He took it so hard when his grandfather passed away. Papa Stefan raised him after his mother died. He lives with his uncle now, but I'm sure if you have any stories to share about his grandfather, he'd be happy to-"

"I was mistaken, miss." The man insisted and hurried off.

I breathed a sigh of relief. At least there was that taken care of.

Caroline still wasn't back a while later, and a teacher whose name I can't remember (Elena was not in any of her classes) came and took over the booth for me, so I wandered briefly back to Stefan.

I decided not to mention the man because, quite frankly, Stefan had paranoia issues when it came to being discovered as bad as mine were with vervain. Which is sad. Really sad.

"Hey, Stefano!" I called, making a split-second decision to go see what Jenna, whom I'd spotted earlier, was up to. "I'm going to go see my aunt!"

I probably didn't need to shout it as loud as I had, but, oh well.

I found Jenna sitting at a picnic table near a news truck.

"Waiting for your car, Aunt Jen?" I asked snidely, a teasing grin on my face as I slid onto the bench beside her. She scowled at me.

"Say it louder, why don't you?" She muttered pointedly, and then the man from the telly came over, looking rather more smarmy and generally prattish and untrustworthy up close than he did on screen.

"Hi! Elena, right?" He greeted cheerfully. "I think I met you once when you were nine."

"Your emotional maturity level when we were together," Jenna cut in disparagingly.

"Ouch," he exclaimed in an exaggerated tone. "And here I thought we were making progress!"

I could sense things were going to get awkward if I stayed, so I excused myself and left, leaving Jenna and her anchorman to it.

The car wash was a hundred times more interesting when I got back than it had been when I left. One moment, I was hanging out with Stefan, talking, finally, although we avoided any sort of discussion on literature, and the next I knew, Stefan was pulling me along by the hand towards a car that was on fire.

Well, towards Bonnie, but she was near the car that was on fire.

"Bonnie!" I called as Stefan grabbed her shoulders and tried to get her attention. He shook her lightly and then forcer her to look away from the flames after having called her name like three more times. She looked dazed, and afraid.

"What just happened?" She asked urgently, confusedly.

"You were in some kind of a trance," Stefan supplied carefully. She glanced back at the car and then at Stefan and I again, distraught.

"Did I do this?" She asked in an almost whisper, and Stefan glanced quietly over at me before admitting, "I think so, yeah."

"Bonnie," I started, but she cut me off with a tentative sort of, "Nobody else saw…did they?"

Stefan shook his head softly.

"Bonnie," I said more insistently. She glanced up at me, trembling a little. I grimaced. "Bonnie, it's okay. Remember what I told you? About the candles?"

She looked fearfully at me and then at Stefan.

"Don't tell anybody," she begged quietly. "Please."

Both of us nodded and I moved to speak but she turned on her heel and hurried away.

I watched her go with a guilty feeling…and decided, then, that it was time to come clean with Stefan. I wasn't sure what exactly I would be telling him, but he needed to know.

"Lena?"

My train of thought was derailed by the concerned voice of Stefan himself.

"Sorry, I was just…" I started, trailing off and then appraising him with a serious look. I hoped he wouldn't be…upset with me for not telling him earlier, although that would be hypocritical of him, considering he hadn't exactly been forthcoming either. "We need to talk."

He nodded slowly, eyes searching as they skimmed over my face.

"Lena, is this about what happened the night that…" He began, pausing hesitantly as I mused that he did have a proper romance novel stare, as Bonnie had put it, and never finished because I grinned and clapped him on the shoulder.

"I'll swing by later, alright?" I asked, and when he nodded, I gave him a hug to make him relax a little. Honestly, the man needed to relax. And by relax, I mean be less uptight, not be reckless and end up going on a bender as a ripper for the next couple years.

I caught a ride home with Jenna, whose car had 'finally' been finished (I knew for a fact it had been done nearly an hour and a half ago). On the way back, I found out that 'Logan' would be coming over for dinner.

Apparently, the bickering I had left them at had ended up in the smarmy anchorman being invited to the house. It's funny, because while I could see that he very much wanted Aunt Jenna, I had a terrible feeling about him.

"That's cool," I commented casually, trying to shake off my mild unease.

"Well, don't get too excited for me," Jenna returned a little dryly, glancing at me from the driver's seat. I shot her a sheepish grin.

"It's not that," I said truthfully. "I'm happy for you, of course I am. It's just…I have a kind of bad feeling."

"About Logan?" She asked, brow furrowing a little.

Yes, I wanted to say. Yeah, just a little bit because I'm pretty sure he gets killed by a vampire in the future, probably by Damon and I don't want you to get hurt. _That_ would have gone exceedingly well, wouldn't it have?

I settled for a careful, "I just don't want you to get hurt."

She smiled, looking quite fondly at me and reached over to ruffle my hair.

"Don't worry about me, Elena," she said, sounding satisfied with herself. "I can handle Logan if he turns out to be the same jerk I remember him being."

She nodded, then turned her gaze towards me quite sharply as if realizing something.

"Elena," she said hurriedly, "you know I'm not going to leave, right?"

I blinked.

"What?"

Where on earth had _that_ come from? It took my brain a minute to catch up with the sudden turn of the conversation, but as soon as it did, I understood.

"No, no, that's not what I was afraid of!" I blurted quickly in hopes of not giving her the false impression that she was right. "I just meant, it's a little weird that he knows where you live and waited until right _now_ to try to get you back. It's not like I thought you'd skip town or leave us if things went wrong. I know you'd never do that. So does Jeremy."

Relief blossomed in her face.

"Good. I'm glad. I would never leave you guys," she assured me earnestly.

When we got home, I told her I'd be going to Stefan's for a bit later and then hid in my room while she started getting everything ready for her date.

I stayed at home for longer than I'd meant to. The reason for this being, of course, the fact that I was, quite frankly, nervous. I didn't want Stefan to be angry with me. He was my best friend. He liked me for me (and the fact that I looked like Katherine, but since he wasn't trying to have it on with me, I largely ignored this). 

Anyway, it should be a good thing, right? That I already know and will keep quiet? It certainly will save him a lot of anxiety and such. How can he be angry or upset about that?

I pondered this while lying back on my bed, and then frowned and sat up. I thought I heard a strange noise coming from Jeremy's room. Like someone was rifling through something.

I slipped off my bed quietly and carefully walked out of my room, opening my door as silently as possible. Jeremy and Jenna's date were facing off in the hallway.

"What are you doing here?" Jeremy demanded not a little suspiciously.

"Oh, hey, man." Logan Fell greeted Jeremy rather neutrally. "Just looking for the bathroom?"

Jeremy glanced at the bathroom and back at the news anchorman in utter disdain and exchanged a look with me as the man nodded, said a falsely bright thanks, and scurried off. Uneasy, I walked over to Jeremy, pointed hesitantly at his room door, and then nodded in the direction Logan had gone purposefully.

"Do you think he was in your room?" I almost whispered in his ear, and then stepped back to where I had been standing. Jeremy looked again in the direction Logan went, brow furrowed in doubt, his expression one of utter mistrust.

"I don't know," he muttered with narrowed eyes, "but he better not have been."

It was strange, and it went unnoticed by neither of us that Logan had hurried back downstairs when Jeremy caught him and not to the bathroom as his lame excuse implied his intention was.

The sound of laughter (flirty, giggly laughter) floated upstairs to us and we shared identical expressions of disgust.

"I don't like that guy," Jeremy said aloud, disgruntled, and went to his room, presumably to shut himself in for the rest of the evening.

Having been left alone, I decided there was no time greater than the present, slipped on a pair of flats, and managed to tip-toe downstairs, nab the car keys, and steal away into the night without disturbing (or alerting, depending on how you think about it) Jenna and her date.

It was time to have my little talk with Steffy.

_To be continued in Lost Girls._


	10. LOST GIRLS

_Lost Girls_

To say I was surprised when I raised my hand to knock on the door and it was suddenly whipped open by Stefan, who was out of breath, angry, and holding a stake, was like saying that it was only very occasionally that it rained in Scotland.

"Lena?" He demanded, and hurriedly tried to move the stake so that I might not notice it.

The only reason he could possibly be running about with a stake in hand was if…

"Oh my God, he got out, didn't he?" I asked, feeling anxiety bubble in the pit of my stomach.

Stefan's expression was guarded, and his eyes were sharp on mine.

"What are you talking about, Lena?" He asked quietly, gravely, and I bit my lip.

"Er, do you mind how I told you earlier we needed to talk?" I asked awkwardly, receiving a nod in response. "Yeah, this is kind of what I meant."

His expression was neutrally blank, and I wondered what he was thinking about.

"Are you, um, terribly busy right now?" I asked, motioning at the stake in his clenched hand. "If you are I can come back or you can come over or we could just forget this ever happened…?"

"Lena, what do you know?" Stefan asked, taking a step, then another, then another until he was close enough to put his hands on my shoulders and force me to look at him. "It's very important that you tell me _exactly _what it is that you know."

"I know what you are," I blurted, not as neatly as I'd originally intended to. "I know what you are, I know what Damon is, I know all about Katherine, I wasn't kidding at the party when I said nothing would convince me you hadn't signed that, and I was on vervain for like, two days before you gave me this necklace, which, by the way, I utterly adore."

The look on his face told me I'd utterly knocked him for six.

"I'll just be taking my leave now," I said blandly and then sprinted back to the car.

"Lena, wait!"

I yelped and stumbled backwards as Stefan appeared suddenly in front of me, like, _right _in front of me the same way his brother seemed to like to do.

"Christ, Stef, are you trying to kill me?" I demanded, clutching at my heart, but lost most of my energy when I saw how desperate he seemed under his passive expression.

"How do you know all this?" He asked, grasping for answers I wasn't sure I could entirely give.

I sighed, fidgeting uncomfortably.

"Can…can I tell you tomorrow?" I queried softly, raising my eyes up to meet his. "I promise I'm not just saying that because I'm bottling out, although you are kind of scaring me right now…"

A look of hurt flashed across his face and I hastened to reassure him.

"No, no, not that kind of scared!" I insisted a little loudly. "I know you don't drink from people and I know you won't hurt me, I trust you. I just mean that you're a little intense and I didn't mean to stupidly blurt all that out and make you all tense and the other reason I think we should leave this until tomorrow is because Damon's on the loose and…"

I trailed off because I didn't want to think about what Damon was up to even less than I wanted Stefan to find him and try to stake him. I didn't think Damon would kill Stefan, and I doubted Stefan would succeed, but if they did find each other, it wouldn't be pretty.

"Is Damon going to come after me?" I asked after a moment.

Stefan let out a tired sigh, at last breaking his silence.

"I don't know. No. Possibly. I…took something from him that he needs. He'll do whatever it takes to get it back, and, well, he'll probably try to hurt you to get to me."

"Did you take his ring?" I asked softly, and his gaze shot to mine.

"You know about the rings?"

I blew a gust of air tiredly at the sky.

"I have these…dreams…visions, or something." Yeah, now available on DVD and Blu-Ray. "I know bits and pieces of this and that, the past, the present, the future. Mostly the past and the future. Little things about certain people. And some kind of big things about big people."

"You knew," Stefan said suddenly, disbelievingly. "That night when you invited me into your house as I was leaving."

I giggled.

"Yeah. That's also why I tried to avoid directly inviting Damon in when he and Caroline showed up at our movie night. Didn't help much, in the end, but I gave it a shot."

"And that tea you mentioned when I gave you the necklace," Stefan continued. "You were already drinking vervain?"

There, I shook my head.

"No, I don't actually have any vervain tea. Don't much care for herbal teas, anyway. I've been wearing the vervain because I didn't want to end up screwed because I missed a dose and it passed out of my system later. I bought a bunch of the dry stuff in some new-age herbal organic medicine shop that opened not too long ago."

He nodded once, slowly before looking me up and down curiously.

"What do you wear with vervain in it?" He asked, and I froze, red rising rapidly in my cheeks.

He raised an eyebrow at my reaction and I sighed.

"Promise you won't laugh?" I asked him tentatively, fixing him with a less than nice look when he had the audacity to look a touch amused.

"Promise," he said, holding his hands up in mock surrender.

I slipped off one of my flats to show him the little square at the heel.

"I sewed little patches of vervain onto every pair of shoes I wear, see? Except…and if you ever tell anyone about this, I will find you and…and I will do something awful to you. I'm not sure what, but my wrath will know no bounds!" I warned him, and let myself happily pretend I didn't see the amusement in his face at the idea.

"Anything you say," he agreed. I had to concentrate extra hard on being in denial to refute the edge of mirth seeping into his voice.

No. Focus.

"I don't actually need the shoes," I confessed awkwardly. "I sewed the vervain patches onto them so that they'd be the sort of moat to my real vervain hiding place's castle walls."

I could practically see him wonder at my paranoia.

"That's actually…quite thorough. But why would you need that level of security?"

I shrugged.

"Let's just leave it at I like to be thorough." I requested dryly, and Stefan nodded.

"So," he said instead of pursuing that line of thought about my paranoia further, "where do you keep the rest of your vervain?"

I flushed red.

"Like I said, tell anyone and I'll kill you or maim you at the very least," I commanded with burning cheeks. I cleared my throat. "I sewed a patch onto the inside, near the clasp, of every bra that I own."

Stefan's eyes widened in amusement, alarm, and something I couldn't discern.

"That's…inspired," he said at last, and I nodded, looking anywhere but at his face.

There was a brief pause and then his mobile was ringing.

"You should get that," I told him, a sinking feeling in my stomach. He returned my expression grimly and flipped it open.

It was Damon. I heard him say that much before he stepped away. I couldn't tell what they were saying because I was standing off to the side and Stefan would hardly have needed to speak loudly while on the phone with another vampire with supernatural hearing.

His expression hardened and he said something a little heated. I wondered, again, what was happening. What had happened when Damon escaped? I knew he eventually turned Vicki, but was that going to come sooner or later?

"I'll take you home," Stefan said shortly, and I jumped nearly a foot in the air not having heard him come up near me.

"If you'd like," I responded lightly, although I had a feeling his sudden interest in getting me home was due to the phone call he had just ended.

The way home was quiet. Stefan came all the way up to my room with me, I think because he wanted to be sure that Damon hadn't snuck into my room (I got a bit of a scolding when he noticed I'd left the window wide open).

"Tomorrow," Stefan said, abruptly changing the topic from warning me to be wary of Damon. "Will you meet me somewhere tomorrow, and finish telling me about…"

He made a vague gesture with his hand.

"Yeah. Do you want to meet at the Grill, have some coffee or something?" I asked idly, swinging my legs from where I sat on my bed.

"Yes," he said, after a moment, thinking.

He ended up staying for a while…for a long time, actually, because I couldn't remember when he left when I woke up the next morning.

"You look tired," Stefan observed as I sat down across from him at a table outside the Grill.

I yawned in response, hurriedly covering my mouth with my hand, and nodded slowly.

"I have no bloody idea why…but I've always felt right knackered after a full night of sleep."

I wasn't even joking. I'd gotten somewhere around ten hours of sleep before coming to the Grill to meet Stefan and yet I was still half way in dreamland.

The waitress brought Stefan's coffee and surprised me by setting one in front of me as well. I snatched up the mug as soon as she had left and took a long, satisfying sip.

"I love you," I told Stefan with a dead-serious look in my eyes. "You are _brilliant_."

He chuckled, knowing of course that I was referring to the fact that he had ordered coffee for me and thus saved my poor, still-sleeping brain the wait.

"So…" Stefan began, clearing his throat a little. I could tell this would be the start of his questioning. "How is it that you know all these things?"

I sighed, pushing my coffee away.

"It's complicated? I…I'm not sure how to explain it."

"Try," he insisted gently, and I took a deep breath then nodded.

"Okay, so…this is going to sound right strange, but, I'm not Elena Gilbert."

I don't think he knew what to say to that, so I quickly tried to clarify without, you know, telling him the whole truth, exactly.

"I woke up one day with a bunch of memories crammed in my head that don't match up with who I am. Actually, it was the same morning you came to school," I explained, trying not to cringe because I made it sound like I had been Elena realizing she was a different person instead of being a different person finding themselves as Elena, but I didn't want him to question why I had been able to slide into her life without raising too much alarm.

He didn't, after all, know about Elena's significance, other than the fact that she literally was a copy of Katherine.

"I want to show you something," he said thoughtfully in response.

I blinked.

"Sure?" I answered, actually not sure at all because he hadn't really asked me if I would go, but then he hadn't said it like a command, and…

"When you're finished," he elaborated, nodding at my coffee.

Better to get it over with, I thought, apprehensive because, well, he hadn't really reacted to what I said about not being Elena and for all I knew he was angry (not really his style, but who could know?) and planning to dismember me in the middle of nowhere.

I think it said a lot about how much I trusted him because, even with my paranoid thoughts at the forefront of my mind, I tossed back what was left in my mug in a single go and said, cheerfully, "Let's go."

He left money on the table for both of our drinks, and then I was following his directions to some unknown place. And by unknown place, I mean that my dismemberment-in-the-middle-of-nowhere theory was beginning to have a bit of credence, because he took me to the forest. At least, I thought he had, until I saw the ruins of…

"Was this your home?" I blurted as soon as I caught sight of it, the image of a stately house popping up in my head.

He looked a little surprised, but nodded.

"Yes. Damon and I both grew up here."

Yeah, I could practically see flashbacks that must have been from the show in my mind's eye, like a film running in my head.

"It was a beautiful house," I murmured, running my fingers along a ruined column.

"You've seen it…in your dreams?" He asked, and I nodded, turning back to face him with a bit of a smile playing on my face.

"I've dreamt of Katherine before, that's how I've seen the house. Conversely, that's also how why I kept picturing Damon in that silly bowler hat. The scarlet waistcoat really did suit him far better. But don't worry, you're still the dapper one! Just not, _the_ dapper one, as in Dapper-Suit-Man. You are the more Dapper of the Salvatore brothers. Oh, just ignore me."

He looked torn between bewilderment and amusement.

"You…have you always had these visions?" He asked, and I shifted uncomfortably.

"Stefan, they're not visions." I answered quickly, feeling my heartbeat pick up in my chest. "They're not. I don't know what they are, and they're mostly from the past."

I was panicking and I didn't understand why.

"Hey, hey, it's alright," Stefan, dear, wonderful Stefan murmured to reassure me, hesitantly touching a hand to my shoulder in a gesture of comfort. "They're not visions. It's okay."

"I'm sorry," I said, feeling choked up. "I don't know why…"

He didn't say anything, I didn't expect him to. He just stood by me while I collected myself, and then took my hand and started distracting me by pointing out what had been where in the house. It was actually kind of fun, in an interesting, museum sort of way.

We didn't discuss anything more serious for quite a while, but when we did, I was surprised. I'd told him he could ask me what he liked and I'd do my best to answer. I expected him to ask questions about what I knew about him or what the real Elena was like, but he didn't. Instead, he asked about me.

"What?" I asked numbly, staring into space in shock.

"I want to know more about you," he expressed quietly, watching me intently.

My throat tightened.

"It's not important. You don't have to…"

I didn't know what it was I didn't want him to do. He didn't have to ask. He didn't have to wonder. He…He didn't have to care.

"I want to."

I was saved, saved by the ringing of my phone.

It was Jeremy. He was in a tizzy trying to get Matt's number for me, trying to get me to call Matt and send him to the house because Vicki had taken something bad and was having a bad, bad kind of trip. Realization snapped into me at once, and I hurriedly gave him what he wanted and hung up, turning to face Stefan with something like panic in my voice.

"She's in transition," I told him quickly. "Vicki Donovan, she's at my house _with my little brother_ and she's in transition!"

Stefan's face grew grim. He didn't ask how I knew, or if I was sure, just wordlessly led me back to the car and drove us back to my house. I was so very afraid for Jeremy. I knew that Vicki attacked him, but I didn't know when. I was terrified she might be attacking him at that very moment in time, and that I wouldn't be able to protect him.

By the time we got to the house, Matt was already there, and I won't lie, when Jeremy answered the door I threw my arms around him in aching relief. We found Vicki freaking out in the kitchen…she looked terrible. It was awful to see her like that, so lost, so…unstable.

Stefan knew as soon as he saw her that I had been right.

"Vicki…look at me. Focus. You're going to be fine." He told her quietly, putting a hand to her cheek in a gesture of empathy. "Everything's going to be fine."

She calmed down as he spoke to her, tears threatening to spill onto her cheeks.

"Guys," Stefan called Matt and Jeremy, his expression running towards grave. "Take her to up to bed; shut the blinds. She's going to be okay. Come on."

They did as they were told and escorted Vicki up the stairs.

"Lena," Stefan said quietly, and I turned to face him.

"Yeah?" I responded, and realized with a jolt that his look of concern was stemmed from the fact that I was almost crying.

"Sorry," I apologized, "I…"

"Lena, listen to me," he said, reaching towards me very, very cautiously, as if he were afraid I would bolt if he touched my face. "Stay away from her, Lena. She's dangerous."

I took a step back.

"My brother's up there with her. _Her_ brother is up there with her."

"Please, Lena," he insisted. "She won't hurt them. There's still a part of her that's human."

"She'll attack Jeremy, Stefan. I don't know when, but I can't take the risk that it's now."

I strode purposefully towards the stairs, but Stefan caught me and backed me into the wall between the cabinets and the doorway, his arms on either side of me. I glanced up at him with Elena's wide doe eyes, my heart pounding loudly in my chest.

"Stefan-"

"Don't go to them, Lena, I don't want you to get hurt. I'll take care of Vicki. I'll make _sure_ she doesn't hurt Jeremy or Matt. Just please, stay away from her."

His voice was low and urgent and just a little bit pleading, and I found myself hesitate.

"You promise?" I asked in a murmur, pressing my back farther into the wall because he was _right there _and I was uncomfortable.

"I will if you do," he offered, and, after hesitating, I nodded.

"I'll stay away from her."

"I'll make sure she doesn't hurt them."

We stayed as we were for a minute, and when it became apparent that he wasn't going to be moving as immediately as I'd like him to, I ducked under his arms and slipped past him with the intention of fetching myself a glass of water. He caught me and spun me around so very gently I found myself wishing he'd have slapped me across the face or something instead.

His thumb ever so gently skimmed my cheek and then he pressed his mouth, tentatively, _achingly_ slowly, against mine.

I jerked backwards, eyes wide, and bolted towards the stairs, intent on locking myself in my room until I could successfully pretend it never happened. At least, that's what I wanted to do, not what I did, because as I made it to the stairs, Vicki came barreling down them.

She shoved past me and sped out the door, Jeremy and Matt close on her heels. Stefan looked anxiously between me and the direction of the front door, torn.

"Go find her," I told him, my voice shaky and not at all at myself.

He nodded once and followed the little group after Vicki, and I ran up to my room and nearly slammed the door shut behind me. My mind was reeling. He kissed me. I mean, I get that I look the same as Katherine, but it was hardly necessary. Although this did give more credence to my theory that that the 'doppelganger allure' Dapper-Suit-Man talked about is an actual thing independent of the doppelganger's personality herself. Because I was nothing like the real Elena, and Stefan still…

I frowned at my reflection in the mirror, Elena's reflection, hell, _Katherine's_ reflection.

I had stopped straightening my hair because it was too much bother, and, wearing it loose around my shoulders, I looked more like a Petrova doppelganger than ever. But I wasn't her, I wasn't Elena, I wasn't Katherine, I wasn't Tatia.

I pondered such heavy thoughts for quite a while, until I was drawn from my stupor by the sound of the doorbell. Without any consideration, I went to answer it.

I opened it, took one look at the person on the other side, and tried to close it.

Damon's hand shot out, gripping the door, and he pushed it open, a winning smile on his face. I made a face.

"Why don't you head upstairs, Jer?" I suggested to my brother, who had come down the stairs shortly after I did. He glanced at Damon then at me a tad unsurely, but I graced him with an encouraging smile and at last, he left.

My smile dropped.

"I don't want to talk to you, Damon."

"There's no need to be rude, I'm just looking for Stefan," he scolded, not quite hiding the look of amusement on his face. "May I come in? Oh, wait. Of course I can. I've been invited."

I sighed and stepped aside for him to enter.

"You didn't give me much choice," I muttered, rolling my eyes. I felt oddly comfortable. "Bringing Caroline was clever. If you'd tried on your own I would have never said the words."

"You did make it difficult, didn't you?" He mused, and then stiffened. "You knew."

I nodded, leaning casually against the wall.

"Of course I knew. I know a lot of things." I admitted easily, willing to clarify no further than that. "Now go away, Damon. Stef…Stef's not here."

My tone wavered awkwardly when I said Stefan's name, and _of course _Damon noticed.

"Trouble in paradise?" He questioned snidely, and I glared at him.

"I'm _angry_ with you, Damon. I'm right and proper seething. You turned Vicki and put Jer in danger. I am giving you _one_ chance to drop that line of questioning, just the one, or face the consequences."

He merely raised an eyebrow in obvious challenge, a slow smirk passing over his face. I counted to three in my mind and then muttered, "too late" under my breath.

A curious look flickered briefly across his face as I grabbed his hand and dragged him up the stairs to my room, shutting the door behind us.

"If you wanted to get me in bed, Lena, all you had to do was-"

"He kissed me." I interjected, not feeling up to his mocking advances. "Your brother kissed me and I have no bloody idea why and you're the only person in the world I can talk to about it, so even if I'm angry at you and more than a little afraid of you…well, here we are."

"What happened to facing the consequences?" He asked sardonically.

"You're having a heart to heart chat with a teenage carbon copy of your ex-girlfriend about her boy troubles with your younger brother." I informed him dryly. "You've sunk so low as to be the sympathetic ear to teenage drama. _Those _are the consequences. You're talking about _feelings_."

He cringed.

"I'm not. You are. Are attempting to. Whatever."

"Somehow, your revulsion at the idea makes me feel better. I just…it took me by surprise. I don't want to be kissed. Not by Steffy or anyone. For several reasons. But…I don't want to lose my friendship with him. I mean, you and him are the closest friends I've got."

He let out a low whistle.

"To think my little brother and I are your top two pals…your life is pathetic." He stated in a tone that was almost impressed. I glared at him, and then sighed.

"I have other friends," I argued, utterly aware of the irony of that statement. "I just…oh, I don't want to have to go through all that explaining again."

I threw my hands up in the air in a universal gesture of being at one's wit's end and sat despondently on my bed, snatching up a pillow and hugging it as if it could protect me from everything that could hurt me.

"Did you punch _him_?" Damon asked out of the blue, standing easily in the center of the room.

I shook my head.

"No," I answered, and saw a muscle in Damon's jaw twitch. He covered whatever he really thought with a sarcastic, face-splitting grin.

"So! When's the wedding?"

I glared at him.

"Don't be such a dick. If I _wanted_ him to kiss me, I'd hardly be complaining about it to you, now would I? I'm not some confused little girl who's never been kissed. He's my friend, my best friend. I don't want to lose him, but I can't be with him the way he wants. What do I do?"

"You could kiss me and forget all about him," Damon suggested with a smirk. I shot him a deadpan look.

"It's not funny, Damon."

"Oh, I think it is," he retorted, his expression viciously, wickedly entertained. "Poor little Stefan…rejected by his crush. If you didn't punch him, what'd you do? Hmm?"

Talking to Damon had been a terrible mistake. He wasn't the same Damon I remembered from the show. Elena wasn't here to make him admit to being a somewhat better person. He was bitter and angry and alone and speaking to him had been the most foolish, futile venture I'd embarked on to date. And yet…

"I ran," I confessed quietly. "Just go, Damon. Stefan's not here."

Whether he actually had some semblance of a heart in him still or had simply decided he had enough of antagonizing me, he left, and I was grateful. I went to bed early, hid under the white duvet and convinced myself I was tired. If Stefan came back to speak with me, I would be sleeping and unavailable to him.

I hardly slept a wink, and what little sleep I got was troubled with strange dreams.

_To be continued in Haunted._


	11. HAUNTED

_Haunted_

I woke with a stifled scream, bolting upright and clutching at my duvet so hard I might have feared tearing right through the fabric of its cover had I been paying any attention.

"A dream," I repeated to myself firmly, "just a dream, nothing more."

It hadn't been a nightmare by usual standards. It had simply been so real, so unbearably, heartbreakingly real that it terrified me. I dreamt of things I knew for a fact hadn't been in the show, and it seemed so…

I shook the thought from my head. No. I would not dwell on odd dreams. It wasn't as if my dreams actually meant something, like I'd claimed to Stefan. It was probably just the deliverance of the bad karma I'd built up for lying to him. That was all.

Still, thinking of Stefan made me sad and nervous. Was the allure of the doppelganger truly that strong? Would I have to distance myself from my closest friend to avoid becoming entangled in the romantic attachments that the real Elena seemed to be drowning in?

I walked into the bathroom with a frown on my face, and only then realized it was occupied. "Sorry!" I squeaked, and stepped back out, closing the door.

"Oh, no, it's cool, I'm done," Jeremy called from within, and I cautiously opened the door.

"You sure?" I asked, watching him with narrowed eyes. He laughed, though it was subdued.

"Yeah, I'm sure."

He made to leave but I stopped him.

"What are you up to?" I questioned inquisitively. "It's a bit early for you to be up and about, isn't it? Sneaking off somewhere?"

He stiffened a little and I knew I was right.

"To the police station," he admitted. "They're organizing a search party for Vicki."

I nodded my head in sudden understanding, and then felt my face fall into a grimace.

"Jeremy…I know you don't want to hear this, but just let me say it, even if it's just so that I can feel a smidgeon better about myself not being an entirely negligent sister."

He raised an eyebrow but did not move, and I took it as a victory, small as it was.

"Please, please, _please _try not to skip school. I know you're worried about Vicki, I am too. I may not have been close to her, but she's Matt's sister and our families have been friends since we were little kids in diapers. Go to the station if you honestly feel you'll be able to help, but please, stop skipping willy-nilly."

He nodded a slightly hesitant assent and then left. I sighed, gazing at my rather lackluster reflection in the mirror and decided that as soon as I stepped out of the shower, I would be doing something about the bags under my eyes. They looked atrocious.

By the time I was finished getting ready, I had made myself miserable. Sure, I looked a hell of a lot better than I had when I woke up, but my dream was weighing heavily on my mind and, quite frankly, I missed Stefan. I missed him because I was afraid of seeing him, afraid of what he'd say, afraid of what I'd say, just generally afraid and it was sickening.

I decided that I had to be brave. I had to talk to him.

It was thusly that I found myself ringing the bell at the Salvatore Boarding House. Damon answered, leaning casually against the door with a smirk.

"Is your brother home?" I asked first and foremost, praying that he was so that I hadn't dredged up what little courage I had for nothing.

"Yup," he drawled, and I pursed my lips.

"May I come in, then?"

He _was_ rather blocking the door.

"And good morning to _you_, little miss I'm-on-a-mission."

I sighed. There really was nothing else for it. He could be such a pain in the backside when the fancy struck him.

"Hello, Damon. How are you this fine morning?" I asked flippantly, as though I had all the time in the universe to exchange pleasantries with him.

"Quite well, thank you," he responded with a dainty sort of sniffle. I rolled my eyes.

"May I please come in _now_, Damon? Where is Stefan, anyway?"

"He's upstairs," he uttered cheerfully. "Singing 'The Rain in Spain.' Knock yourself out."

At last he stepped aside to let me pass, and slipped lithely by me out of the house. I decided not to question it and left him to do as he pleased, heading inside.

"Stefan!" I called, not really loudly, since I knew he could hear me anyway. "Steffy?"

I had just made it to the first step of the stairs when he practically appeared in front of me in a whoosh of air. I jumped.

"I swear, you do it intentionally," I grumbled when I had collected myself, pressing a hand to my chest. "Be still, my beating heart."

"Lena, about yesterday-"

"Yeah, about that," I said anxiously, wishing he hadn't brought it up so bluntly. "I, er…"

I had no bloody idea what I was supposed to be saying.

"Lena, I'm sorry," Stefan cut in, his voice utterly sincere. "I shouldn't have done that."

I brushed a strand of hair that had loosened from my preferred bun behind my ear, looking anywhere but at him.

"Er, yeah, I know I look exactly like Katherine and all, but I'm not her and it makes me really, supremely uncomfortable to…yeah. And…you're my best friend, Stefan, I don't want to lose you. I don't know what I'd do without you."

"It wasn't because you look like Katherine," Stefan interjected quietly. I stared at him.

"What?"

His hands cupped my cheeks, forcing me to look him in the eye.

"It wasn't because you look like Katherine. It wasn't because of that."

I stepped back before I knew what I was doing.

"Stefan, please don't," I begged, taking another step back as he took a half one towards me.

He stopped, his face full of indecision, and then forced a slight smile on his face, nodding at me in surrender.

"Thank you," I murmured earnestly. I could have hugged him, but I didn't want to…make things worse. "Thank you, Stefan."

We stood there awkwardly, him watching me with cautious focus, me looking at the ceiling, the walls, the floor, anywhere but at his face.

"So…" I began, changing the topic. "How's Vicki?"

He seemed to appreciate my effort at moving away from…what we had been talking about and nodded his head pointedly upwards.

"She's upstairs," he said, and then considered what I had asked. "I'm working with her, but…It's going to take time."

I tilted my head to the side patiently as I waited for him to elaborate.

"She has a very volatile and impulsive personality…She's a drug user, I mean, all that's going to play a part in how she responds to this…"

"She's going to have trouble with control," I muttered, feeling frustrated and somewhat guilty.

Stefan glanced briefly upwards and nodded gravely.

"I'm going to keep her here with me until I know that she's safe," he said, and was cut off from saying anything further by Vicki's timely arrival.

"How long _is_ that?" She questioned from the top of the stairs, looking rather miffed.

"We can talk about that later," Stefan told her firmly, glancing back at me.

"I should be going," I interrupted quietly, looking shyly up at Stefan for a moment. "I'll…see you later? If you want?"

The corners of his mouth tilted upwards.

"Of course."

Pleased with his assurance, because it told me things were alright, if not quite the same, between us, I grinned and then, almost as an afterthought, looked up to Vicki.

"Things will get better," I told her, wishing I could have been telling the truth. "I'm sure you'll be out and about in no time!"

She snorted, and that was that.

I think that maybe she would have liked me to stay a little longer, if only to give her someone besides Stefan to speak with, but she didn't ask and I didn't feel like facing her unless it was absolutely necessary. Plus, I was late for school.

Yes, I was a horrible person. Make what you like of it.

When I got to school, I was startled to find it decorated with cobwebs and spiders and other Halloween things. Was it that time of year already? I had thought it earlier for whatever reason…Oh, right. The weather. It was far milder at this time of year than it would have been at home, so I suppose my mind didn't connect the season to the date.

I missed Bonnie and Caroline that day, (as well as my first four classes but I couldn't have been less bothered about that). I spent the majority of the afternoon drawing…actually, I may or may not have decided to draw a few of my favorite characters from the show, two of the Originals included. I suppose they had simply been at the forefront of my mind because of my dream…

Klaus and Rebekah gazed up at me from their respective papers, Klaus with a darkly troubled, searching sort of stare and Rebekah with a shrewd and lovely, liberating scoff. I admired my own handy work quite conceitedly for a moment and then flipped them face down and placed one over the other on the desk.

I resolved at once to draw Elijah. That is, I amended, once I got a drink. I was parched.

I found Jeremy in the kitchen, pacing back and forth while on the phone.

"You gotta call me, Vick. I don't get it, what's going on with you? Just…please."

The desperate pleading tone to his voice, frustrated, afraid, filled me with pity.

"Hey, Jer," I greeted as I walked in, trying to think of something to distract him with. The first thing that came to mind was a Halloween Party supposedly going on at the school. I asked him if he wanted to go without really thinking about it.

"Cool, sure." He responded distractedly. "Sounds fun. Can't wait."

I wanted to tell him to be careful around Vicki, but there was no point if I couldn't explain why, so I just smiled at him a little and said, "Brilliant. Whenever you want to leave, give me a shout, yeah?"

He waved an affirmative and walked off, phone in hand.

Not too long later, I found myself walking among a crowd of students with my brother at my side.

"You could have dressed up," I said, perhaps a tad reprovingly as I smoothed down the front of my sexy nurse costume. And when I say sexy, I mean that I was dressed in a mildly provocative but not too bad sort of manner, not trussed up in some skimpy swath of fabric like a slag.

Jeremy shrugged, his hood pulled nearly over his eyes as he glanced around for something. I sighed and shook my head at his lack of holiday spirit. It seemed as though everyone else around us were in costume too.

The first person I met that I recognized was Matt, who was dressed to match me as an equally bloody surgeon and greeted me with a sardonic, if strangely pleased, "You went with last year's costume too, huh?"

Oops. I shrugged.

"I honestly hadn't been planning on coming…changed my mind last minute and here I am."

He nodded and admitted that he hadn't either and then tore his eyes from me to greet Jeremy with an even more sardonic, more amused jibe about his costume, or lack thereof, and my brother left. I frowned after him and apologized briefly.

"Sorry, he's a bit upset," I excused, and Matt shrugged in understanding. "How's Vicki?"

The corners of his mouth turned down a little, and he seemed to wilt.

"I'm trying not to smother her, but part of me didn't want to let her out of my sight."

I nodded along as if I'd been following and then froze when I processed his words.

"Oh, is she here?" I forced myself to ask casually. "I hadn't seen her yet."

Matt let out a small, if subdued, chuckle.

"Yeah. You can't miss her, she's a vampire."

I rather wanted to curl up into a little ball and cry. Instead, though, I forced myself to be at least someone less of an insufferable coward and patted Matt on the shoulder.

"I'll be sure to keep an eye out for her," I said reassuringly. He had no idea how sincerely I meant that. "And I'll catch up with you later, okay? I'd better get going after Jeremy."

I didn't really give him time to respond because I dashed off as quickly as I could run (which admittedly wasn't all that quickly). I was trying to think of where Jeremy and Vicki might be, I remembered what happened as soon as Matt mentioned her costume. Tonight was the night that Vicki attacked Jeremy. But where?

I tried to think but was coming up blank as I wandered throughout the party. I grit my teeth as I side-stepped a couple that smelled like they'd swam in their bevvy instead of drinking it as they clumsily mashed their mouths together. Where could he have gone?

It came to me in a torrent of images. Outside. Bus. Vicki biting Jeremy's lip. Vicki attacking him. They were outside.

I wove in and out of the crowd like a snake in my haste to the exit, and when I got there, I was alone. Perhaps they hadn't come? No, they must have. In between the buses, then.

I walked to the end of the row of buses and found nothing. Disheartened, I turned back towards the door that I'd come from, and then stiffened, hearing a definitely male shout.

"VICKI, NO! STOP!"

There, second bus from the door. I ran to the source of the noise only to find Vicki pinning my brother to a bus, black veins bursting from her eyes, her expression feral.

"OI!" I shouted, hurriedly slipping out of my high heeled shoes. "YOU STUPID SLAG, GET THE HELL AWAY FROM MY BROTHER!"

I flung my shoe at her with all my strength and it hit her in the back of the head. She turned to face me, snarling like an animal, and she lunged.

Panicking, I hit her hard across the face with the pointed heel of my other shoe, and she ripped it away from me, grabbed me by the front of my dress, and sent me flying into a pile of things meant for the rubbish. Wood splintered and glass broke.

Pain, sharp, stinging and utterly unendurable shot through me, beginning from my side.

She didn't make it two more steps towards me because she was suddenly slammed against a bus by Stefan. My heart stuttered weakly in my chest in relief, even as Jeremy stared, horrified. "Stefan!" I breathed gratefully and struggled to my feet.

"Go," was all he said, and he didn't need to tell me twice. I grabbed Jeremy's hand and pulled him away, clutching at my bleeding side. I moved so quickly that I didn't see Vicki get loose.

We had barely made it to the door when Jeremy's hand was literally torn from my grip and he was knocked to the side. Vicki spun me around even as I struggled against her and then she sank her teeth into my shoulder.

I couldn't help it; it was excruciating. I screamed.

And then Vicki choked and whimpered and I realized suddenly that the sickening squelching sound I'd heard was Stefan shoving a stake through her heart.

I stumbled away from her as Stefan wrenched it out of her and she fell to the ground. Her skin grew ashen gray and taut and her eyes glassy. Then, she was well and truly gone.

I was vaguely aware of Jeremy calling her name in horrified disbelief, but my eyes were on Stefan. And his eyes were on _me_, more specifically on the blood leaking from my side and shoulder. He swallowed.

"Take Jeremy home please, Stef," I said, though it was mostly for his benefit and I think he knew it. "I'll wait here with…with Vicki."

He nodded once, mouth in a tight, grim line, took Jeremy by the arm, and led him away. I waited alone for a little less than ten minutes.

"You should go, I got this." Damon said casually as arrived, and I glanced up at him from where I knelt beside Vicki's corpse.

"Hello, Damon." I murmured rather unenthusiastically.

"Always so happy to see me, huh, Lena?" He asked sarcastically.

I sighed wearily, burying my face in my hands.

"She's dead, Damon. And what's worse, I knew that she was going to die and I didn't say anything. I didn't try to stop it. I'm literally the _reason_ she died. Stefan wouldn't have…If it wasn't for me, she'd still be…"

"Oh, no you don't. I think we've had enough of the heart to heart crap for a lifetime. She's dead. Like, actually dead, not undead dead. Get over it."

He said it so callously I found myself growing angry.

"What kind of monster says things like that?" I demanded, standing up and poking him in the chest accusingly. His smirk took on a dangerous edge.

"Now, now, Lena, I wouldn't be doing that if I were you."

His tone was so unbearably condescending I wanted to punch him in his fat mouth…I blinked, realizing that…I wasn't feeling so guilty and wretched anymore. I was annoyed, and it washed away the selfishness in me. And…he'd done that on purpose.

I sighed.

"You're a dick, Damon, but I love you," I stated flatly, and then grinned, just a little bit. I sobered quickly when I remembered Jeremy was at home, alone, and hurting.

"I'll see you later, yeah?" I told Damon, waved, and left.

Vicki was dead. I never even knew her, but…Jeremy was devastated. I saw it written all over his face when I had finally gotten home and gone up to his room to check on him. I had bumped into Matt on my way out of the party, and he had been worried sick about his sister. He was another person who would be profoundly affected by Vicki's death.

I had known, I had known all along that she would be turned and then die. I knew, but I didn't do anything to stop it.

"I'm so, so sorry, Jer," I murmured gently to him as I pulled him into an embrace. I could feel the wetness of his tears stain my shirt, and my heart nearly cracked clean in two when he asked me, very quietly, in a voice more pained than any boy his age's should ever be, why everyone had to die on him. I couldn't take it.

"Jeremy…I'm going to make things better for you," I thought, taking a page out of the real Elena's book. She'd had her brother compelled, right? I knew she did, at least to get him out of Mystic Falls, and I was pretty sure she had after Vicki died.

But…I couldn't do that to him. Not just like that.

"Jer, I'm going to ask you a very serious question and you need to answer it, yeah?" I asked, placing both of my hands on his cheeks and making him look up at me.

He nodded in my grip.

"If, and I mean _if_," I started hesitantly, my voice rather grim. "If there were a way that I could make you feel better, would you give me permission to do it?"

He looked confused.

"If you could forget about what happened, just about what happened, and keep all your happy memories with Vicki, would you want that?" I asked softly, persuasively.

"Would it hurt?" He questioned, sounding like a lost child.

"Not at all," I murmured soothingly, stroking his hair. "It wouldn't hurt you at all, only help you. You wouldn't have to suffer through this…not again. But it has to be your choice."

"I just want it to stop. Just…make it stop."

I would. I said as much aloud.

"I will, Jer. I promise you I will. In fact, just wait here and know that very soon it's going to be all over, okay? I'll make it better, I promise."

He just nodded and buried his face into his hands, slumped over like a broken man, and I hurried outside to where I had seen Stefan on my way in.

"Stefan," I breathed and threw my arms around him. "Stefan he's so upset, he's devastated."

Stefan tightened his grip on me a little as he murmured "I know, I'm sorry" into my hair. I pulled away from him, steeling myself to ask what I needed to.

"You heard us, right?" I asked, wanting to make absolutely sure. Stefan hesitated but nodded. I breathed a sigh of relief and then asked very seriously, "Stefan…can you compel him? Would you? It's the only way I can think of…to make things better for him. He needs to forget."

"If I did it," he responded honestly, "there's no guarantee that it would work. Because of who I am, because of how I live. I don't have the ability to do it right."

I felt my eyes burn a little as I nodded, the picture of Jeremy's face weighing heavily in my mind. So that would be it, then. He was broken, and I would need to piece him back together as best I could.

"I can do it."

My head swiveled to face Damon, who had come up so quickly, so quietly, he was standing casually on the porch with his hands in his pockets.

"If this is what you want, I'll do it."

"Thank you," I said sincerely. "Thank you, Damon."

He smirked.

"That's what friends are for, right?"

I giggled, wiping my eyes so that I didn't end up actually crying.

"Yeah," I responded with a hint of a smile. He was acknowledging our friendship. "I'll…I'll owe you for this, Damon. It means…the world to me."

"Yeah, yeah," Damon teased, and then turned a more serious expression towards me. "What do you want him to know?"

I considered it briefly, but I already knew.

"I want him to forget about what happened tonight," I started slowly, "and when he thinks of Vicki, he should only remember happy things. He won't hurt over her, he'll move on naturally over time, and remember that he loved her, once, and hopes she's happy out there. And…anything else you think might be necessary in case he…has to talk about the police."

He nodded solemnly and went inside the house.

I went and sat by Stefan.

"Things have been hectic, haven't they?" I wondered aloud, feeling tired and still guilty and strangely relieved, like there was some terrible weight off my chest.

"Yeah, they have been," Stefan answered, staring up at the sky.

"It's done," Damon announced, stepping onto the porch with us. I got up then and threw my arms around him in a hug. The look of surprise on his face, I swear.

"See?" I mumbled into his jacket. "Same as I'll punish you with a fist to the face for being a prat, you get rewarded for good behavior. Friendship."

Damon rolled his eyes.

"You sound like you're training a puppy."

I let go of him, horrified.

"What kind of monster would punch a puppy?" I demanded, and he snorted.

"Good to see you out of your funk, Lena."

He didn't stick around and neither did I. I was tired, and as much as I was beginning to dread sleep because of my dreams, I was eager to get to bed. I sat with Stefan for a little while, just the two of us, everything back to a perhaps tentative version of what it had been, resting my head on his shoulder until he told me to go on and get some rest.

"See you tomorrow?" I asked sleepily as I stood up and rubbed at my bleary eyes.

"Of course."

I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

_To be continued in 162 Candles._


	12. 162 CANDLES

_162 Candles_

The next day started out with a police inquiry about Vicki. It seemed simple enough, and I was fairly sure all of us told the sheriff the same story. It was, strangely enough, thanks to Damon that we even had a story: he had had the presence of mind when compelling Jeremy to plant the idea of a phone call from Vicki in his head during which she said goodbye and that she was leaving town and all that.

I saw Stefan on the way out of the police station but didn't have much time to chat since I had come with Jenna and Jeremy. Instead, I stuck my tongue out at him as I passed and purposefully bumped his shoulder with a giggle.

"Sorry about that, stranger," I said, faking surprise and remorse at my own actions while Jenna rolled her eyes and Jeremy faked gagging. How rude.

"It's quite alright, miss," Stefan replied smoothly, a hint of a smile quirking his mouth.

I laughed.

"See you later today?" I questioned vaguely, and he nodded.

I wrapped him up in a brief hug and then left with my family.

THERE WAS ONE, UNDENIABLE UPSIDE TO WHAT HAD STARTED AS A TEDIOUS DAY. I WAS AT LAST ABLE TO HAVE MY TALK WITH BONNIE AND IT WAS WONDERFUL. Well, it was rather touch and go for a bit, but all in all it went excellently and I was chuffed!

I had just been lying back on my bed, notebook resting on my stomach, with a ton of ink sketches scattered about. More specifically, ink sketches of people I had seen in my dreams, which I had had an incredible amount of the night before.

I suppose I was just tired from everything that happened with Vicki, because I actually got a solid eight hours of sleep. But anyway…

I had drawn what I dreamt, and thus I had several new pictures, of Katherine, of Elijah, of Stefan and Damon, of Rose and Trevor, of Klaus, of Rebekah. I had even drawn Kol with his baseball bat as he readied it to bash in Damon's face.

I cringed at the thought. I didn't want Damon to get hurt, even if he was such a monstrous dick at times that he probably deserved it.

I was distracted by a knock at my door.

"You up?" Bonnie asked as she let herself in, and I sat up, my mood shooting from bored to suddenly cheery.

"Bonnie!" I cried out, delighted, and bolted upright. The notebook I'd been tearing drawing paper from flopped uselessly to the side and my pens (I had since bought more to my standards) scattered all over the place.

A confused look passed over my face when I saw her mouth pop open in surprise.

"What's wrong?" I queried, concerned.

It took her a moment to answer.

"Since when can you draw?"

I looked from her to the papers scattered on my bed and back to her.

"Oh, God," I blurted, and then grabbed up all the papers at once, shoving them into a pile and scrambling off the bed. "Um, since forever, kind of, I just don't like…"

She plucked the pile out of my hands deftly, thumbing through them was an expression of utter shock on her face. I whimpered.

"Elena, these are amazing!" She said sincerely, and I laughed nervously and all but snatched them out of her hands. She let me take them, but her gaze followed, curious. "Who was that guy? The hot one with the soul-searching stare and gorgeous body."

"What?"

She rolled her eyes.

"The shirtless one."

Had my picture of Derek from Teen Wolf gotten mixed in with the others? I supposed so, because I couldn't think of any other pictures I had drawn in my multiple hour long sketching frenzy that fit Bonnie's apparent criteria.

I must have taken too long to answer because Bonnie tried again to job my memory.

"The guy with the tattoo of the birds on his shoulder?"

I all but choked.

"Elena?" Bonnie asked worriedly as I thumped my chest in hopes of regaining the ability to draw breath. Bonnie thinks Klaus, _Klaus_, is hot. I mean, he _is_ hot, but that's besides the point! It's _Klaus!_ I was so sure I was having an aneurism, it wasn't even funny. When I finally managed to control myself (it wasn't easy), I cleared my throat.

"Oh, just a, um, character from my dream."

She smirked.

"Good dreams, huh? Let me guess, guy that looks at you like that, he's got to be the villain."

I flinched and then shook my head.

"He's a victim." I told her steadily, surprising myself with how much I believed it.

Her brow furrowed and she smiled a little skeptically.

"He looks like more of a Big Bad Wolf than a Little Red Riding Hood."

You know, I have to say it: Bonnie was on a roll when it came to making me cringe at her uncannily unnerving commentary. I was impressed. And horrified. In equal parts.

"Oh, he _is_ the Big Bad Wolf, trust me, and a whole lot worse than that besides." I admitted, and then decided I was done with that decidedly strange topic. "Anyway, I owe you a bit of an explanation, don't I, Sabrina?"

I paired my mirth with a winning grin but Bonnie just looked at me a little confused (and possibly internally panicking) for a moment before it clicked.

"You know!" She exclaimed, eyes widening. I nodded.

"I would have told you a bit sooner but I couldn't precisely expect you to believe me, now could I? So I figured I'd let you know when you got the hang of putting out and lighting candles. Except…I wasn't sure when that was going to be, so I rather left it up to you."

Bonnie's face was one of pure delight.

"That's why you told me about that stuff! That's why you believed me and encouraged me when I told you about my Grams saying I was psychic!"

I nodded and she threw her arms around me in a hug.

"I didn't know how to tell you about it, but you already know!"

I couldn't help hugging her back.

"Hey," I said as I vaguely patted her shoulder gently, "you know that no matter what's going on, you can come to me, right? Even if it's the most ridiculous, unbelievable thing, like aliens or faeries. You can tell me about it, and I promise I will always consider what you tell me with an open mind. I swear it."

She pulled away a little, her own smile wide and full of fondness.

"You're my best friend, Elena," she told me, voice full of affection. Somehow, that made me so very, unaccountably (or perhaps not) _sad_.

"I owe you an explanation, Bonnie." I muttered, turning away from her. "And I just want you to know that I won't expect anything from you after you've heard it, okay? I just ask that you listen to what I have to say, everything, and then you can make whatever decision you choose."

She looked a little hurt and confused besides, but nodded. I opened my mouth to speak and found that I couldn't. I sighed and lay back, staring at the ceiling as if it would help. After a moment, Bonnie slipped under the covers and lay next to me, resting her head on her elbow.

"Elena, what's wrong?" She asked kindly, patiently.

I wanted to be honest with her, because she'd been a good friend since I'd arrived, and if I preferred Stefan, it was solely because he saw me as myself in Elena's body. Bonnie was wonderful, and she deserved to know as much of the truth as possible. I didn't want to lose her friendship, and not just because it was vital to the plot.

"I don't remember anything from before…" I could have been completely, utterly truthful, but I wanted a chance. Anyway, as I understood it, Elena had avoided all her friends over the summer, Bonnie included. It wasn't too much of a stretch. "I don't remember anything about Elena Gilbert's life before the accident."

Bonnie stared at me, her expression curiously neutral.

"What do you mean? You remembered me, all of us," She pointed out evenly.

"I mean that I have these weird dreams about things that have already happened, things that are happening, and things that might happen in the future and they started when I sort of woke up one morning with another person's memories rammed into me in place of mine."

"And these dreams…that's how you knew about me being able to use magic. That's how you knew about…the car. These memories, that's why you were so different suddenly?"

This was a mistake. A horrible, _horrible_ mistake. I could feel my stomach turn even as Bonnie blankly stared me down. I fucked up.

"Yes," I confessed in a tiny voice, desperately trying to think of a way to minimize the damage. "I still feel the same about all of you, though! I still recognize you, I still know you. I just…don't remember, well, anything."

Still no change in her worryingly relaxed posture.

"So, the person I've been talking to is…not Elena?" She questioned guardedly.

I shook my head frantically and then stopped, biting my lip.

"I think," I said very carefully, "that that is up to you to decide. I am myself, or I think I'm managing to be myself. Just know that whether you choose to accept this, accept me as I am, or not, I will always be here for you, and I swear not to tell a soul about the fact that you're a witch. If you have any questions, I will answer them to the best of my ability, but I think it's time for you to think about it and decide what you need to do."

It wasn't a lie. It was just moderately skewed to present me as something other than a parasite that took over her best friend's body.

"I…I need to think about this," Bonnie drew out with not some difficulty. I was, quite frankly, more relieved by the fact that there was confusion and unease visible on her face than I was upset by what she was saying. At any rate, it was more than I had honestly expected.

I had been prepared for the worst and this was not it.

"I understand," I said with a half-smile, pretending I wasn't hurt although I knew it was utterly unreasonable to expect her to just _accept_ me like I wished she would. "Take all the time you need. You're one of my best friends, Bonnie. I'll be here once you've made up your mind, and any time that you need me, whatever you decide."

She looked almost guilty and opened her mouth to say something but I shook my head.

"It's okay," I insisted. "Really. I kind of had this talk with myself when I realized there was something wrong. Don't worry about it, and even if you think you're sure, take some time to think about it, okay? I don't want you to rush into something and change your mind later because you feel you didn't think it through or were mistaken."

It was obvious to the both of us that I was referring more to the idea that she might accept me and regret it, which would hurt more than anything, I think, than I was to the idea that she might find rejecting me a mistake.

She left quietly at my behest, and I lay back and wondered if I had made a mistake. I wanted to say yes, to be angry with myself for being stupid, because it wasn't like it was with Stefan, who had only known me as myself and wouldn't miss Elena, but I knew that…as much as the idea of losing Bonnie upset me, it was wrong to keep pretending. Especially when I considered all the shit Bonnie goes through because of Elena.

Hardly thirty minutes had past when three quick knocks on my room door broke me from my sulking stupor and Bonnie rushed in, looking a little uncertain.

I sat up in surprise, eyes wide.

"Bonnie, what are you-"

"I'm sorry!" She blurted suddenly, and I stiffened. That was not what I had been expecting.

"You have nothing to be sorry about," I told her honestly.

"No," she said firmly, the corners of her mouth turned down in a frown. "I'm so sorry, Elena. You knew about the candles and the premonitions and the car and you didn't judge me. You tried to tell me that day, didn't you? When I accidentally set the car on fire. You kept calling me, and I didn't listen. You wanted to comfort me even though I did something wrong.

You accepted what I could do before I accepted it myself, and it was completely wrong of me to walk out on you earlier. You're my best friend, Elena, and maybe you're a little different now, but you're still my friend. You've been…you've been even better than I expected you to be about this. Sure, you're a little quirky. But…I think whatever happened to you made you better. I mean, I've always loved you, you know that, but just because you're changing doesn't mean that I won't. And…if there's any way I can help you adjust, I will."

It was as close to unconditional acceptance from her as I was ever going to get, barring if I eventually confessed I really _was_ a completely different person in Elena's body. It wasn't perfect, and I hadn't been completely honest, but it was a start and I could not have been happier. Bonnie accepted me. I had begun to think she wouldn't, but she did.

"Lena," I said, clearing my throat. "You can call me Lena. If you want."

I don't think I've ever felt closer to someone than I did when she tilted her head to the side almost curiously and then didn't ask, instead nodding and giving me a firm "okay" as she tested the name on her lips. Lee-nah. Leeeee-nah. She didn't ask why, she just embraced it.

"Lena. I like it. It suits new, quirky you." She said, a small smile touching at her face. A thoughtful look briefly marred her features. "Wait, is this why Stefan and his brother both call you Lena all the time and never Elena?"

I nodded almost hesitantly. Surely she wouldn't be upset…?

"I…they were a fresh start, and I wasn't the same me when I met them. I…I didn't know how to tell you. You're not…mad?"

She shook her head emphatically.

"No, Lena. I'm just sorry that you felt that way. You know you can come to me with anything, right? You're my best friend and…you never once looked at me like you thought I was weird or a freak, even though you knew about my magic."

I grinned.

"I would never look at you that way. And besides, being a witch sounds amazing! I wish I was half as cool as you!"

We hugged it out and talked and laughed and my mood was soaring once she left. Bonnie was my friend! _My_ friend! I didn't bother trying to delude myself to think that it meant she had accepted me as a random person wearing Elena's body, but the fact remained that she had taken in all the numerous differences between the real Elena and myself and seen that we weren't the same and she'd outright told me that I was her best friend.

I was so different from Elena, and yet Bonnie still accepted me as her best friend. There are no words for what a comfort that had been. I suppose I had just needed someone to talk to besides Stefan and Damon as myself, myself wholly and completely.

It was a beautiful feeling to realize that I could be myself with Bonnie from now on, without reservation.

I was in such a good mood, I decided to go see Stefan to share the good news.

(I say Stefan and not Stefan and Damon because Damon probably couldn't be less bothered and quite frankly I had no idea where he stood on what knowledge I had, because I didn't tell him and it was rather unlikely Stefan had. I'll probably have to correct that in the near future…)

I rang the doorbell when I got there (thus avoiding the knocker that had cut my poor finger, evil thing that it was) and was startled to hear a female voice from inside.

"It's open, come on in!"

I did so, closed the door politely behind me, and turned around to see some vaguely familiar blonde woman in a towel. Oddly enough, she seemed more startled by my presence than I was by hers.

"Oh my God!" She blurted suddenly upon seeing me, and I figures she must have seen a picture of or known Katherine, because I didn't look terrible enough to merit a response like that. (Elena never looks terrible. It's a gift). "How, uh…we-_who_?"

I blinked.

"Hullo there. I'm Elena. I go by Lena, mostly. I just thought I'd nip in and see Stefan and…" I frowned as that funny tingly feeling of recognition grew stronger. "Do I know you?"

"Lexi." She introduced shortly, and hastily added, "Friend of Stefan's."

Lexi, Lexi, I know that name, come on, where on earth do I know that name from…?

"He's in the shower." She added when I was silent, and I think I startled her by suddenly pointing at her with a hand slapped over my mouth.

"You're Lexi! _That_ Lexi!" I accused, and then coughed. "I'm sorry, that was bloody rude. You're Stefan's best friend, right?"

She nodded wordlessly, still gaping. She cleared her throat.

"Um, you can wait if you want." She offered, clutching at her towel like it would protect her from the terrifying Katherine look-alike. I tried (not very hard) and failed not to roll my eyes.

"Nah," I said easily, letting a friendly smile creep up on my face. "It's alright. I didn't know he was having company or I would have been more tactful and not nipped over unannounced like this. Have you been here long?"

She smiled back, a little more tentatively than I would have hoped for, but I digress.

"No, I just got here this morning."

I nodded and then let out an embarrassing cross between a yelp and a squeak.

"You're here for his birthday!" I exclaimed, my mouth popping open in horror. "Oh my God, he didn't even mention it!"

I was so caught up in my surprise at the date (which I would have to note for future reference) that I didn't stop to process what else I remembered from the show and instead hurriedly said goodbye to Lexi and rushed home in a tizzy as I considered what on earth I would be getting him for his birthday.

I missed a confused Lexi watch me go with not a little suspicion in her eyes as she wondered aloud, "How did she know that?"

_To be continued in 162 Candles II._


	13. 162 CANDLES II

_162 Candles_ _II_

My brilliant solution for a last minute birthday present was an ink sketch of the birthday vamp himself, painstakingly copied from my favorite of my original drawings of him (I had drawn pretty much everyone of significance since my arrival, several more than once). I couldn't give him the original because I had been drawing on lined notebook paper, and I didn't think pulling the irritating residue off the side of the paper where it had been attached to the notebook would make it formal enough to give as a gift.

The end result, on clean, not solid white paper was significantly better than the first, and as soon as the ink was dry, I dipped the whole page in an unsatisfactory brand of English Breakfast I had steeped for at least six minutes far too long. (I had yet to find a brand of tea that tasted like my preferred brand back home, hence my recent appreciation for coffee).

I dried it with a hairdryer and promptly took a match to it, aging the paper even further. When it was done, completely dry and looking like a very respectable and not too obviously faked to look like it was several years old, I carefully slid it into a picture frame that once held a picture of me and (of all people) _Tyler Lockwood_. I kept the photo for Elena when she returned, stuffing it into her diary, and stepped back to admire my work.

Whoever had chosen the frame (my bets were on Carol Lockwood, it looked like the sort of thing she'd buy to put a photograph of her son and myself in) clearly had a taste for the ornate and ostentatious, and if it was a particularly old-fashioned sort of frame, I supposed it did look rather modest for what it could have been.

It was the perfect match to my faux-aged ink portrait.

Even more utterly perfectly, I was just heading out the door (once I'd done my best at wrapping it, which honestly wasn't very good at all, but I did put a nice ribbon on it) to give it to Stefan when the doorbell rang and guess who was there?

None other than the birthday boy himself.

"Stefano!" I greeted enthusiastically, tossing myself on him in a friendly, if a little aggressively fond hug. "Happy birthday!"

He caught me in a warm embrace.

"Thank you, Lena." He said, holding me tightly for a moment and then releasing me. "Lexi said you stopped by earlier."

I bobbed my head up and down.

"Yeah, I did, but…well, that's not important. Here!" I said, and handed him his present. He took it from my hands and I pretended not to see the amusement in his face at my frankly atrocious wrapping (at least the ribbon was pretty?) as he turned it over in his hands.

He moved to open it and my eyes nearly bugged out of my head.

"No! Don't!" I commanded hastily, and cleared my throat awkwardly at Stefan's questioning look. "Please open it later, preferably when I'm not around. You know," I continued, cracking a wry grin, "so that you can toss it with the rest of the rubbish it if you don't like it, or so you don't embarrass me with your overwhelming gratitude when you it turns out you adore it. It's just a silly little thing, I made it today because you didn't tell me your birthday was this week, so don't get your hopes up for anything special-"

"Whatever it is, I'm sure I'll love it," Stefan told me firmly, and grinned. "Anyway, are you going to Caroline's party at the Grill tonight?"

I considered it, and was about to tell him I wasn't really feeling up to it when a sharp pain slammed into my temples and I stumbled back a step through the doorway.

"Shit-" I panicked, putting my hands on Stefan's shoulders very seriously. "Steffy, you have to keep Lexi away from Damon. You _have _to. Don't let her go to the party, don't let her out of your sight. Actually, send her away. Go with her, if you want. But get her out of Mystic Falls."

"You had a dream about Lexi?" Stefan repeated, trying to process what I was telling him. "What happened?"

It was in a small, small voice that I answered.

"She died."

He stared at me as if he _could _believe me, as if it was all too easy to, which, considering what Damon's usually like, it probably was.

"She went ahead to the party already," he informed me evenly. "She wanted to go ahead."

I shifted where I stood, that deep pit of unease like a knot in my stomach.

"I don't know if it happened at the party or not. I don't remember. Just…if she stays, Stefan…"

He nodded and turned to leave. I grimaced, I didn't want him to go just like that. Not on his birthday. I caught his sleeve.

"I'm sorry," I said quietly. "I didn't want to ruin your birthday or anything, but I had to-"

"It's okay, Lena," he murmured, turning to push my hair to the side of my face. "I'm glad you told me. You can always tell me anything, even if you think it'll upset me."

I grinned.

"I love you, Steffy. Now go and save Lexi!"

He nodded and then walked off with purpose into the darkness.

It's funny, as the evening progressed, I felt as if I needed to leave. As if I needed to get out of the house, needed to go out and _do_ something. No…even though I hadn't felt at all inclined to go to Caroline's party earlier, I found myself wanting to.

_ No, I _didn't_ want to, and that's what was odd._ I didn't want to go to the party at all. It didn't seem important (and have you _seen_ Mystic Falls' party track record?) and quite frankly, I wasn't interested. So why, then, did I find myself rooting through Elena's closet for an outfit to wear and grabbing up my keys as if I were running late?

Worse still, the tablets I'd taken for the building headache hadn't kicked in, and the sharp, stabbing pain was more bitterly insistent than ever.

By the time I got out of the car and arrived to find the Grill surrounded by police cars, I was questioning if I had even been fit to drive there. The aching sort of pull disappeared, though the headache worsened out of pure spite. Stefan, I thought as I nearly stumbled towards the Grill's doors. I needed to find Stefan.

It was him that found me.

"Stefan, what are you still doing here?" I asked hazily, as the sharp pain in my temples threatened to topple me over.

"He killed her." Stefan told me hoarsely as he steadied me, and I noticed for the first time how unusually shiny his eyes had become. "Lexi, he killed her."

I clapped my hands to my mouth to smother a gasp of horror.

"No. He…_why_? He can't have. He…"

He had, and I knew it. Of course he had. He used her death to get Sheriff Forbes to trust him, to pin the blame for his victims on someone else. Of course he had killed her.

"Stefan, I'm sorry," I said, knowing how futile words were. "I should have told you sooner, or…or something. I should have done something."

"You warned me," Stefan said morosely, though I could feel the _anger_ stirring in him. "You couldn't have done anything more."

His expression was growing quickly, frightfully dark.

"I'm going to kill him, Lena. He's gone too far. He has to die."

I stumbled a step back.

"Stefan, he's your _brother_-"

"_Lexi was my friend!_"

He was struggling to control his breathing, to keep the aching fury that was eating him from within from breaking his surface.

"You can't kill him, Stef," I insisted, putting my hands on his shoulders and looking for the Stefan I knew in his face. "He's your brother. Remember how you felt when he was dying. You turned him because you couldn't live without him. Remember, Stefan."

A split-second of something that wasn't quite indecision and wasn't quite shock flickered across his face and suddenly everything was gone.

"_Human. Impossible. Hello there…"_

My head was aching and I felt like I was going to be sick.

"_Please don't let him take me."_

The dream I'd been having came crashing into the forefront of my mind and I fell.

_ Elijah came in right after Rose did, and there was something about his presence that cowed me. Perhaps it was the so very obvious terrified reverence he was afforded by Rose and Trevor, perhaps the part of me that dreamed recognized him for what he was, the creature I as a fan of a television series would turn a blind eye to in favor of his nobility. _

_ He caught sight of me and my breath caught in my throat, I took and instinctive step away from him. I could not fight the urge to blink, perhaps because I _wanted_ to close my eyes, to turn away from the creature wrapped in human skin._

_ But no, I knew him. I knew what drove him. I knew all about him._

_ My eyes fluttered open to catch him lowering his head to mine, his mouth so very nearly brushing against my own as he angled his face so that he could bury his nose in my neck and breathe me in, feel my very mortal pulse quivering against my throat. _

"_Human. Impossible." He uttered as if his saying it were so would make it reality. The barest hint of a smile crossed over his face. "Hello there…"_

_ I said nothing, merely took a step back and-_

_ Elijah came in right after Rose did, and there was something about his presence that cowed me…He caught sight of me…angled his face so that he could…feel my very mortal pulse quivering against my throat._

"_Human. Impossible. Hello there…"_

_ I said nothing-_

_ Elijah came in right after Rose did…caught sight of me…angled his face…feel my very mortal pulse…_

"_Human. Impossible. Hello there…"_

_ I opened my mouth to speak._

"_Elijah?"_

_ He turned away and-_

_ Elijah came in…caught sight of…angled…my very mortal pulse…_

"_Human. Impossible. Hello there…"_

"_Elijah!" I cried out suddenly, my hands grabbing his shoulders either to steady myself or in the pretence that I could somehow make him listen to me. "Elijah, you have to listen!"_

_ He turned away-_

_ Elijah came…caught sight…mortal…_

"_Human. Impossible. Hello there…"_

"_Elijah! He lied!" I called desperately, and did not know why I did it, only that it felt like the thing to say. My mouth was running itself now, saying things that did not connect with my conscious thoughts. "He has them, all of them. They're safe."_

_ He had moved to turn away but stopped abruptly, shoulders rigid, back straight, stiff, as if I had managed, at last, to catch his attention. _

"_We have a long journey ahead of us." He said at last. "We should be going."_

_ And that was that, he turned away and-_

_ Elijah came…caught…mortal…_

"_Human. Impossible. Hello there…"_

"_He lied, he has them all, listen to me, Elijah. He has them, they're safe. All of them. Finn, Kol, Bekah. He has them and I want to help you, all of you. Please listen…"_

"Lena!"

I woke, if you could call it that, in a panic, thrashing about in Stefan's arms. His face was floating somewhere above mine, I could hardly make it out.

"Stef?" I questioned unsurely, and I saw what I think was him nodding.

"I'm here, Lena." He assured me, sounding distinctly on edge. "What happened?"

I tried to open my mouth to speak but my bizarre nightmare was still flickering through my mind in brief flashes of Elijah, Trevor, and Rose.

"I had a dream," I said when I was first able to, and looked to Stefan with an almost vacant sort of confusion settling in the pit of my stomach.

His look was one of pure disbelief, so unnatural on his usually stoic face that I wondered, briefly, ridiculously, if he had been possessed or was Silas or…I don't know.

"That wasn't a dream," he informed me slowly, staring at me as if he were trying not to let me know he thought I was utterly stupid. (Thanks for that, Stef). "A dream is something you have when you're asleep, Lena. That was some sort of…vision."

It was my turn to look at him as if he were the stupid one.

"I know that, Stefan," I chided a bit irritably. "I meant that I had a dream a few nights ago that became some sort of recurring nightmare, and it just sort of filled my head right now and kept repeating and changing slightly and it was so very strange."

He opened his mouth to ask but I shook my head. I didn't want to talk about it. Not necessarily because it was something that I found psychologically scarring or something, it wasn't _that_ sort of nightmare, but because he didn't need to know. The whole Sun and Moon curse wasn't until the second season (which I am in equal measure relieved and proud to say that I was more than moderately familiar with).

"It's not that important," I offered as if to appease him. "We can talk about it later. Right now, though…"

I regretted returning his attention to the matter at hand because the matter at hand at that particular moment in time was Lexi's dead body lying just around the corner. Stefan's expression darkened suddenly, and we were right back where we had started before I had my little episode.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Stefan asked hesitantly, the grip he had on my tightening as I suddenly realized he had been holding me up for the entirety of our conversation. I flushed and removed myself from his arms, stepping a respectable distance away.

"I'm fine, Stef, I promise." I assured him hurriedly, and regretted having practically thrown myself away from him, because the distance I had so suddenly put between us was more than the measurement of space from me to him.

"Go home, Lena." He told me quietly, turning in the direction of where Lexi lay.

"Stefan…" I said, and then stopped. He wouldn't kill Damon. In any case…_he_ was the one in danger when I considered it. Damon was so much stronger than him.

"I'll see you soon?" I asked, and he nodded once. Though we said nothing else to each other, I knew that my meaning had been understood. He would try not to get himself killed, and I firmly believed he would not murder his own brother, regardless of what he had done.

I went home with my mind spinning, bursting at the seams with thoughts of my dream, what it meant, and the troubling look in Stefan's face before he walked away. He wouldn't kill Damon, and Damon wouldn't kill him. I had to believe that.

I had to, because I didn't want to think of what the future would be like without them.

_To be continued in History Repeating._


	14. HISTORY REPEATING

_History Repeating_

"Wait," I said, stopping her mid-rant. "Have you at least spoken with her?"

"No," Caroline retorted a little more than a touch defensively. "I'm mad at her. She needs to make the first move."

I rolled my eyes discreetly, not wanting her to see.

"Caroling, I don't think she's been at herself lately," I explained gently, thinking of the brief glimpse I had gotten of her. She hadn't looked well, and I was concerned. Her face was wan, and she had a constantly pinched sort of expression on her face, her eyes tired and troubled. "Why don't you put your little row behind you and move on?"

"She's a thief, that's why! I gave her my necklace and she refuses to give it back."

"A necklace," I repeated dumbly. "You're in a tiff over an accessory?"

Actually, there was something oddly familiar about that…I couldn't put my finger on it though because I was too preoccupied with the whole Damon-killed-Lexi-and-Stefan-wanted-to-kill-him thing. How Elena managed for multiple seasons, I will never know.

"It's a matter of principle," Caroline uttered a tad tetchily, and I didn't bother being discreet as I rolled my eyes again.

"If principle was what it really came down to, Caroline, you wouldn't be asking for the necklace back at all. Who gives someone a present and asks for it back? Mind you, it's hardly gracious of her to hold on to it, but can you really claim the moral high ground here?"

She frowned at me.

"Just whose side are you on?" She asked petulantly, and I laughed.

"Neither, darling. I love you each far too much to choose!"

She gave me a bit of a funny look and then shook it off, swatting the back of my head lightly as a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. The bell rang somewhere in the background and I said a quick, cheery goodbye and hurried to class.

I noticed Bonnie wasn't there as soon as I walked in and was quite anxious for a few minutes, hardly noticing the absence of the usual substitute we'd had since Tanner's death. She scurried in at the last second which soothed my nerves only a little, and was immediately followed by…oh dear.

"Good morning, everyone…" _That man_ said as he strode to what would henceforth be his desk.

Our new history teacher had arrived, and there was more than a hint of feminine appreciation in my gaze as I watched him slip off his jacket and turn to the board, picking up a piece of chalk as he made his introduction.

"Alrighty," He drawled, and wrote his name on the board. "Alaric Saltzman."

I bet you are, I thought cheekily, pleased to at last have someone safe to ogle.

"It's a mouthful, I know." He excused with a grin. "It doesn't exactly roll off the tongue…"

I watched him clasp his hands together as he spoke and decided fairly certainly that I could manage it. Making his name roll off the tongue, that is. I could _definitely_ manage that.

"Saltzman is of German origins. My family emigrated here in 1755 to Texas; I, however, was born and raised in Boston." He continued, blissfully oblivious to my train of thought. "Now, the name Alaric belongs to a very dead great grandfather I will never be able to thank enough. You'll probably want to pronounce it A-la-ric, but it's A-_lar_-ic, okay? So _you_, can call me Ric."

Shame, really, I rather liked Alaric, but if you say so, darling!

"I'm your new history teacher."

I smirked in my seat, glancing over at Bonnie to mouth a smart comment at her and frowning when I realized how terrible she looked. Well, not terrible, she really was a lovely girl, but, oh, you know what I mean! She looked _exhausted_, as if she'd been up for ages with horrible nightmares or-

Oh.

'_Are you alright?'_ I mouthed to her though I already know the answer. Her eyes catch mine for a brief moment and grow troubled…she looks so very tired. I pity her. Having gotten an opening line out of the way, so to speak, I jump right ahead to voicing, or rather, mouthing my suspicions. '_Nightmares?'_

Her eyes widened almost in fright and she looked hurriedly away from me. I frowned. Obviously, that was a yes. Albeit in an oh-my-God-how-did-you-know sort of way.

I was still watching her when she looked back to me, something like sudden realization spreading across her face. She opened her mouth as if she were going to try to communicate her epiphany to me and instead started rummaging through her bag for a pen.

I watched her scribble and scratch out, scribble and scratch out. Finally, she slid the notepad she was writing on to the edge of her desk.

_I keep dreaming of this woman and seeing her everywhere. Do you know anything?_

I considered this carefully, wracking my brains to figure out what was going on with her. It hit me suddenly and I mimicked her method of communicating, flipping to the first clean page available in my doodling book.

_Have you been sleepwalking?_

The rattled look on her face told me I'd hit the mark, and instead of waiting for a proper response from her, I wrote her another message. I was pretty sure I knew what was going on with her, but I needed time to be absolutely certain of how to help her without risking messing up the general order of things.

_I think I can help. I'll try, but my dreams haven't been very clear. Talk at lunch?_

She nodded slowly after a moment, and I turned my attention back towards Alaric.

My classes before lunch passed in a flurry of utter tediousness (I had been over being in 'high school' since the first day I had been forced to attend. I was twenty-three for God's sakes, being forced to return to secondary, or the American equivalent thereof, was torture). Bonnie was quiet when we met up and headed to her car, as if she desperately wanted to say something but didn't know where to start.

She got over it quickly once we were seated at a table outside in the fresh air.

"And then I ended up at the remains of old Fells Church before I woke up back in the woods," she confided in me gravely, and took a moment to process this. The church, it was significant, but how?

Oh, yes. It had been the place where all the vampires had been…yes. I remembered.

"Humor me for a moment." I requested kindly. She nodded, so I continued. "The spirit of your ancestor Emily has been haunting your dreams and wants you to help her with something that obviously centers around the ruins of the Fells Church?"

"Yes…that's…"

"It's alright, Bonnie. Relax." I interrupted, and frowned for a moment. "Has she told you what she wanted specifically, or has she just asked for your help?"

Bonnie didn't look like she was relaxing in the slightest.

"You think it's actually her talking to me? Like, she's haunting me?"

I made a face.

"Calm down, Bonnie. It's alright." I ordered, and waited for her to take a deep breath before expounding on my point. "Yes, I think it's really her. I have my own dreams as you know, and in them I've learned about something called the Other Side. It's where the souls of supernatural beings go to, I think."

Bonnie hesitated and then reached into her shirt to pull out a familiar necklace.

"I…I think she's haunting me, too, and I think she's using this to do it."

She looked as if she were about to cry.

"Hey," I prodded gently, leaning forward so that I could less awkwardly place a hand lightly on her shoulder in a gesture of solidarity. "It's alright, trust me. I admit, I don't have all the answers you need right now. My dreams have been kind of…on the fritz…for a few nights."

My mind flashed back to the episode I'd had with Stefan. That was no lie.

"Taking the necklace off might help, Bonnie, but it might make things worse." I continued, and the suddenly anxiously thoughtful look on her face told me she hadn't thought of it. "Just…trust me when I say that this will resolve itself. I've had dreams of you in the near future, _true_ dreams. So just know that whatever's happening now, it'll be over soon."

Her eyes started watering again and she just seemed so stressed and frightened that her age was pitiably apparent to me. Too young for all this, I thought, and fought to keep a hard expression off my face. I didn't want her to mistakenly think it was for her, when it was really for the whole situation.

"The next time you see her, I think you should agree to help her and ask that she eases up on you. Whatever she wants from you is probably incredibly urgent in her mind, but that doesn't justify terrorizing you like this. What has your Grams said about it?"

"I haven't told her," Bonnie confessed quietly. "She'd want me to embrace it or something, but I just want it to _stop_."

I sighed heavily. Too damn young.

"I don't think it will until Emily gets what she wants, Bonnie. But," I said warningly when I saw her getting upset again, "I promise that I will help you in any way I can, first and foremost, and I'll see if I can focus my dreams or something to find out more. Secondly…I don't think she wants to hurt you. I mean, it sounds batty and all that, but witches as a general rule look out for their own. And for nature. Her treating you like this is probably a nature thing. But if you agree to help her when the time comes, I'm sure she'll remember that you're her however-many-greats granddaughter and stop tormenting you."

Bonnie loosed a rueful laugh.

"How nice of her," she uttered sarcastically, and I grimaced.

"I'm sorry, Bonnie. It's so unfair that you should have to go through all this. I _swear_, anything you need, anything at all, I'm here. We'll get through this together. I swear it."

All of my efforts at comforting her went to waste because she really did start crying then, scrunched up her face as she sobbed and put her hand on my shoulder.

"You're such a good friend, Lena," she cried, and I felt the barest hint of a smile touch my face. Lena. Not Elena. Leee-nah.

"Together," I promised firmly, and then had a cheeky sort of idea and grinned at the irony. "Always and forever."

She smiled with such grateful affection I found myself smiling too but before we could say anything else, the bell rang and it was time to return to class. I lent her a hanky from my pocket to wipe her eyes with and we went our separate ways.

The rest of school was uneventful and equally unbearably boring as the first half, and I was grateful when it was at last time to leave. I may say with complete and utter honesty that I understand the old adage _saved by the bell_, because the irritating ringing noise that signaled release was, after an exceptionally trying day, nothing short of the Second Coming.

I had always liked learning, but I found classes unchallenging and hardly worth the effort the first time around. Going through it again as a university student who had earned several scholarly accolades in history and literature in the pursuit of a doctorate was nothing short of cruel and unusual torture.

I had been caught up in my self-pitying ruminations on my way out of school, where I found Stefan waiting for me.

"Stef!" I exclaimed, and hurried over to catch him in a hug. Not that I could have hugged him if he did not wish me to, but I digress. "You skipped class today!"

There was the edge of a whine to my voice which he seemed to note with amusement and he smiled, dropping his hands to rest at my waist even after I released him.

"Did I miss much?" He questioned, perhaps a little wryly, and I suddenly realized that he _had_.

"You did, actually!" I called out, nearly bursting with excitement as it sunk in. He blinked at my sudden excitement; had I not just left the school scowling and muttering under my breath about maths? I ignored this in favor of twirling away from him in my enthusiasm and dancing around with joy. "He finally came! Our new history teacher!"

I was happy, and then I remembered what had happened and I could literally _feel_ my face fall and my mood drop in sync with one another.

"Stefan, I'm so sorry," I blurted suddenly, and threw my arms around him again. "I'm so, so sorry. Did you…that is, are you alright?"

He sighed more wearily than I had during my heavy conversation with Bonnie.

"Damon is alive," was all he said for a moment, and then brushed a thumb against my cheek, forcing a smile onto his face. I noticed he hadn't answered my question, though I didn't say anything more about it for fear of needlessly upsetting him.

"Tell me about your new teacher, Lena," he ordered lightly, and I frowned at him, but hesitantly nodded.

I didn't know where to start. I mean, I _had_ known, but that was hardly appropriate after…after what happened to Lexi.

"I…" I began, and then grimaced.

"Please," Stefan said quietly, and I realized that he _wanted_ distraction, _needed_ me to be cheerful and silly if only to take his mind off things for a moment. If distraction was the solace I could give him, he would get it.

"His names A-_lar_-ic, Alaric Saltzman!" I chirped, and then permitted a dreamy expression to settle over my features. "He is also ridiculously attractive and charming and I love him."

Stefan stared at me as if he had forgotten how to speak.

"Are you alright…?" I questioned, wondering if I had misread his desire to have me be as I normally was and offended him with my nonsense.

He shook it off, but there was something stiff about his posture as he nodded.

"I'm fine, Lena. I promise." He assured me, his gaze flickering to the school entrance somewhere behind me.

We stand there in silence for a moment until-

"I won't be coming to school anymore."

My jaw nearly dropped.

"What?"

He cleared his throat awkwardly.

"I'm going to back off and keep my distance. It's the right thing to do." He stated firmly, and seeing my expression seemed to falter. "He killed her, Lena. Anyone else I come in contact with is at risk as long as he's around."

I couldn't figure out how to shut my bloody mouth.

"But…" I began to protest, and then stopped. "That better not be your subtle way of saying we won't be hanging out any more, _sir, _or I shall be most displeased."

There was a hint of laughter in his eyes at that, which I found to be a positive response. But that too, sadly, faded until he was grave again.

"I don't want you to get hurt," he told me quietly.

I understood, even _appreciated_ the sentiment to a certain extent, but…

"If that's how you feel, Stef." I returned stiffly, more coldly than I meant to, revealing more hurt than I would have ever liked to. "I'll leave you be, then. If…you need anything or change your mind, give me a ring."

I turned on my heel and walked away.

Sadly, the afternoon, having been already off to a bad start, did not improve. Upon getting to Bonnie's car, I found my favorite witch herself in quite a state.

"What happened?" I asked, and boy did she tell me.

"He's bad news, Elena," she told me sharply and thought it might have been a bit wrong of me, I was glad he had shaken her up a bit even if only because it put some color in her cheeks and fueled her inner fire, so to speak. "He really scared me."

"He's complicated," I offered and then added more sympathetically, "and very, _very_ scary when he fancies it."

There were worse, scarier monsters out there, but she hadn't met any of them yet and I didn't see the need to trouble her with the comparison.

She was quiet for a moment and I considered all she had said of her encounter with the eldest Salvatore brother. "A deal's a deal," Damon had told her to tell Emily. He had made a deal with her to save Katherine. I think.

But this influx of knowledge upset what I thought I knew, and I realized that I was mixing up parts of the timeline subconsciously. Those parts being Bonnie and her troubles with Emily and Bonnie being helped by the dead witches. Which meant, I had no way of knowing for certain whether or not Emily actually meant Bonnie harm.

"I think I was wrong," I said out of the blue, glancing at Bonnie as she drove. "What Damon said about a deal…I've dreamt something about that. He made some sort of deal with your ancestors. It's true."

I frowned, turning over my phone in my hands pensively.

"And if that's true, everything else he said could have at least a grain of truth in it. So I think we have to assume that Emily might be far less benign than I thought she was, at least right now. I won't say that Damon's trustworthy, but I think if you're going to try anything past tossing your necklace in the bin, you should try passing his message along first."

Bonnie was quiet as she contemplated this and out of no where stopped the motor.

"Bonnie?" I questioned as she unbuckled her seatbelt and threw the door open, nearly slamming it shut in her fervor. She strode right to the side of the rode, unfastened the necklace with impatient fingers, and flung it as far as she could possibly manage into a meadow.

I gaped.

"All my problems were because of that thing," she announced as she climbed back into the car, looking like a woman who had been relieved of a terrible burden. She took a deep breath and smiled. "I can't believe I didn't do that sooner."

I laughed a little.

"Brilliant, Bonnie," I congratulated her, though I felt worry creep up on me as I wondered what Emily's ghost might do for retribution.

"Are you doing anything tonight?" I asked her casually, and barreled on before she could answer. "You could spend the night at mine and we could hang out."

She nodded, upbeat.

"Sounds great!"

At the very least, I thought a little anxiously, I would be able to keep an eye on her. It was a surprisingly comforting thought.

When we got to my house, after Bonnie picked up a change of clothes and all that, of course, we lounged about in the living room for a while, chatting about this and that and everything under the sun until I couldn't take it anymore. (Jenna and Jeremy had gone out to eat at the Grill, so it was safe to talk about the supernatural in the open like that).

"Damon won't hurt you," I told her at last, cutting her off mid-sentence as she told me a story about a boy that fainted while watching a video in her health class.

She stiffened.

"Lena…" She started, and I cut her off with a shake of my head.

"He's scary. And quite frankly, if he got desperate enough, he _would_. But he won't hurt you because I won't let him." I promised, but she still looked skeptical. Yeah, I probably would be as well if some doe-eyed human were the only thing standing between me and the big bad bat.

Inspiration struck.

"I could call Stefan," I offered, my voice a little stronger and less questioningly pathetic than it had been even though I knew Steffy and I had just had a row and were no longer in contact.

The look of raw, unsure hope on Bonnie's face, no matter how hard she tried to hide it, made my decision for me. "I'll call him," I told her resolutely. "He'll help."

Thus it was that when the doorbell rang, it was Stefan waiting on the other side.

_To be continued in History Repeating II._


	15. HISTORY REPEATING II

_History Repeating II_

Stefan and I faced off in the doorway, his mind clearly on the way I had left him early that afternoon. Guilt churned in my stomach, and we stood quietly, neither sure of what to say. Minutes passed in silence.

"You came," I said at last, and realized I had been afraid that he wouldn't.

Bonnie had tactfully retreated to the kitchen, I think, to give us a moment. She must have sensed the tension between us. Our last conversation, after all, had hardly ended well.

"You needed help," was all he returned, and a slow smile stole across my face.

"Thank you. Thank you, Stefan."

A half-smile flitted across his features.

"We're friends, aren't we?"

I couldn't help myself. I really couldn't. But hearing him say it made me so, so happy. I nodded firmly, grinning like an idiot, and stepped aside to let him in.

"Always."

My sincerity seemed to startle him, and he cleared his throat.

"How…what happened?" He asked after a moment, standing in the hallway of my house uncomfortably. We would need to talk later…if he wanted to, still…to put our row behind us.

"Damon cornered Bonnie after school and threatened her over a necklace," I informed him briskly, trying not to dwell on the brief hint of hurt that struck me as he passed and was very careful to keep his distance from me. "A necklace which apparently once hung around the neck of her ancestor say during the American Civil War. Sound at all familiar?"

"Her name was Emily," Stefan uttered in sudden understanding. "She was Katherine's handmaiden and a witch."

"We're all on the same page, then," I concluded, glad I had taken the time between calling and Stefan's arrival to explain what I knew in more detail to Bonnie. I didn't want her to feel that I was keeping things from her or neglecting to mention things.

"What does it look like?" He asked, brow furrowed as he considered the situation.

"Er, kind of orangey brown-_amber, that's it_-and diamond-shaped sort of? Set in metal filigree, not gold or silver, possible iron?"

"I know it," he answered grimly. "It belonged to Katherine, Emily gave it to her, which means that…"

He took a long pause and I raised an eyebrow as if to gesture for him to get on with it.

"I don't know." He said at last.

I debated on revealing that I was pretty damn sure that Damon wanted it to try and free Katherine from the tomb I was fair sure she wasn't actually in and decided not to. Not yet.

"I'll ask Damon about it," he pronounced quietly, with not some difficulty, and I nodded vaguely. He was staring at me again, like he wanted to say something but didn't know what.

I stared right back, lost in thought.

"I'm sorry," I blurted hurriedly after the silence became unbearable. "For earlier, I mean. I was incredibly rude and you didn't deserve it in the slightest. Please forgive me."

He actually looked taken aback.

"You don't have to-" He started, and then changed tracks. "It's my fault. I was being insensitive and a terrible friend. I apologize."

We stared a little more as we waited. What we were waiting for, I don't know, but we were definitely waiting. Waited so long, in fact, that he took a step closer and caught my wrist in his surprisingly strong feeling hand.

"Lena, I-"

We were interrupted by the sound of something breaking in the kitchen and I all but jumped away from him.

"I'm sorry," I said hurriedly, for different reasons this time. "I should…I should get back to Bonnie. I…"

He was nodding along with a bit of a despairing look on his face.

"We should meet up for a chat," I told him firmly, then felt my cheeks heat up and amended quickly, "if you want, I mean. You're one of my best friends, Stef."

"I don't…I'd like that," he answered softly, and didn't bother tearing his eyes from my face. I swallowed at his intensity and looked away, busying myself with opening the door for him.

"I'm glad," I choked out, and I really was but the way he was watching me made me deeply uncomfortable. My heart was pounding a little quicker and I was mortified to realize he'd catch on to that fairly easily. "Just…ring me or text me or whatever you like. I'll be here."

"I will."

He hadn't moved from where he stood and my gaze met his for a moment as we stood awkwardly still in the hallway.

"Right!" I forced out cheerily. "I can't wait. I'll be seeing you. Stay safe."

The barest hint of a smirk touched his face and he moved at last.

"I will. Be careful, Lena."

I didn't breathe properly until the door was shut and locked behind me.

"Lena?" Bonnie questioned sheepishly, peeking out the kitchen door. "Sorry, I broke a glass while getting out plates for when Caroline gets here. I cleaned it up already, I just didn't want to, um, interrupt you."

"It's fine," I assured her hurriedly, and then joined her in the kitchen to set the table as we waited for Caroline and food.

I'd nearly forgotten they'd had a tiff, but I definitely remembered it when Caroline later stood in the kitchen with us, stiffly unpacking take-out from the Grill as Bonnie studiously ignored her. I shot Caroline a meaningful look over the center island and she grimaced.

"I'm sorry," she forced out at last, at least trying to keep a pleasant tone. I was almost proud of her. Of course, that didn't last because she wasn't done. "There. I said it. If you want the ugly-ass necklace, keep it. It's yours."

I resisted the urge to visibly cringe at the utterly graceless apology. Or tried to, at least. Bonnie took it better than I did, instead focusing on the fact that our prideful friend had actually taken the initiative and apologized.

"Will you…hate me if I tell you that I threw it away?" She asked hesitantly, and I suddenly realized that the whole fight had happened because of Damon. Caroline was more than likely under his compulsion to get it back. Why hadn't I realized sooner?

"You threw it away?" Caroline demanded, looking almost panicked.

"I know it sounds crazy," Bonnie began remorsefully, "but the necklace was giving me nightmares I had to get rid of it."

"You could've just given it back to _me_," Caroline retorted sharply, and I took that as my cue.

"Easy, easy there," I interjected, trying to work a soothing note into my voice. "I thought we were doing manicures. Why don't we all play nice and have fabulous nails?"

It was a weak sort of redirection I mentally scoffed at myself for, but it worked and both girls retreated a little. Caroline, being Caroline of course, took the initiative.

"Who has their kit?" She asked in a considerably more pleasant voice, and Bonnie took the metaphorical olive branch and answered, "Mine's in my bag."

I let go of a breath I hadn't been all too aware I was holding as Caroline went off to retrieve aforementioned kit from the bag in question. All was well. Or better, at least.

That was, until it wasn't.

Caroline made a few pointed comments about mine and Stefan's relationship which I idly protested against (it's Caroline. I've learnt by now that arguing with her when she's in a mood is futile) and then…

"Why are you such a little liar, Bonnie?" She demanded, and held up the necklace.

I think I ended up bruising my jaw as _it hit the bloody floor in shock_.

"What?" Bonnie squeaked, and then stared in troubled disbelief and not a little fear at the very same piece of jewelry she'd flung into a field not hours before.

Caroline did not look impressed by either of us.

"I'm not lying to you, Caroline, I swear." Bonnie swore earnestly. I nodded.

"She's telling the truth. Pulled the car over in the middle of nowhere and chucked it as far away as she could, and she's been with me ever since." I added helpfully.

"Well then explain it!" Caroline ordered crossly, and I resigned myself to a long night.

Bonnie began to but got distracted at the implications of the necklace just _appearing_ in her bag and, well, a fight broke out. Hurtful barbs were exchanged, and Bonnie stormed off, upset. Caroline looked to me pleadingly.

"I listen," she said, and I sighed.

"Of course you do," I assured her, "Bonnie just meant that sometimes you misunderstand or choose not to accept the things she's saying at face-value. She loves you, Care, she's just been having a hard time of it, and she's a bit freaked out at the moment."

She nodded unsurely and I pulled her into a brief hug to appease her nerves before suggesting that she go on and fix things with Bonnie. It wasn't my place to get between them, I thought. They would have to work things out themselves.

I joined them after a few minutes and it seemed like things were going well and then Caroline, out of nowhere, decided to have a séance. A bloody _séance_.

Thus it was that I found myself sitting in a circle with Bonnie and Caroline, pitching a mental fit because there was an awful likelihood that with Bonnie there, the whole damn enterprise would be successful and we'd actually talk to Emily.

Then again, Caroline was the one who put it all together, so…

"Bonnie," the blonde girl commanded serenely, closing her eyes and breathing like she was teaching us yoga not trying to summon a bloody ghost. "Call to her."

Bonnie hesitated for only a moment, or that's what it sounded like, and I rather hoped she would call the whole thing off but was disappointed.

"Emily," she called firmly, and I was uncomfortably aware of the fact that, thought I couldn't see it with my eyes closed, she had the necklace clasped securely round her neck. "You there?"

I nearly cracked up.

Caroline reprimanded her prissily, and I stifled my amusement so that I wouldn't be the next one to be scolded. Bonnie rolled her eyes and agreed to try again.

"Emily," she said, perhaps a touch more seriously this time. "I call on you. I know you have a message…I'm here to listen."

The candles flared noisily brighter and all three of us jumped.

"Did that just…happen?" Caroline asked numbly, and I nodded slowly, regretting everything.

"It's just the air conditioning," Bonnie tried to reassure us, but she obviously didn't believe it.

The candles flared again, more insistently this time.

"Ask her to show you a sign," Caroline suggested, and Bonnie drew back a little, shaking her head in a tiny _no_. Caroline pursed her lips. "Ask her."

When Bonnie wouldn't, Caroline did it for her.

"Emily!" She called, "if you're among us, show us another sign."

We waited a few seconds and nothing happened.

"See?" Bonnie breathed a bit more lightly. "It's not working."

"I wish you hadn't said that," I mumbled, drawing my knees close to my chest.

Another second passed in silence and then out of the blue, a door slammed in the hallway and my window swung open and all three of us leapt nearly a foot in the air in fear.

"No! I can't!" Bonnie cried, standing up as Caroline and I had scrambled backwards from our little candle arrangement. "I'm done!"

She pulled the necklace off her neck and threw it to the ground. It landed right next to the candles which were suddenly, without warning, extinguished.

"Get the light!"

"On it!" I answered Bonnie, I think, and clambered to my feet and flipped the light switch. When I turned around there was an expression of terror on Bonnie's face, vaguely reflected in the in-equal-measure confused face of Caroline.

The necklace was gone.

We searched high and low for the damn thing with no success. I mean, I hadn't really expected there would be any success because I knew with more certainty than even Bonnie, the actual witch among us, what the supernatural were capable of. Bonnie would get the necklace back, I figured, when Emily wanted her to have it back.

And then, I saw a dark figure in my peripheral vision.

"Guys…?" Bonnie summoned quietly, and I knew in that instant she had found the thing in a place we had already looked or where we couldn't have missed it. Caroline and I found her in the bathroom, holding the necklace in her hand with a look of terror on her face.

She opened her mouth to tell us something and the door slammed shut.

"Bonnie!" Caroline screamed as I tried to open the door. I couldn't do anything better than jiggling the handle.

"Hold on!" I called, trying to stifle the panic in my voice. "I'll get you out of there!"

Bonnie was screaming as if something was attacking her. The lights started flickering and a cold wind blew in through the windows.

"Caroline, check the other door," I told her with false-calm, "if it's locked shout."

She nodded and a few seconds later, I heard her cry out, "I can't open it, it's locked!"

With a grim expression on my face, I readied myself to kick the door down, keeping my eyes on the handle so that I could kick right above it and ideally bust the lock through the molding of the doorway.

I centered myself and Bonnie's frantic screaming stopped, abruptly, as if she had been cut off rather than pausing on her own to breathe in. I heard the lock click and the next thing I knew, Caroline and I were on either side of Bonnie, who was clutching at her head in the center of the room.

"Bonnie, are you alright?" I questioned sharply, not liking the looks of things.

She was quiet a little longer and then slowly raised her head, letting her hands fall limply to her sides.

"I'm fine."

Caroline nearly threw a fit, but instead accused her of faking it and stormed off. I, on the other hand, wasn't so sure.

"Bonnie…" I began, taking note of the strange way she had folded her hands together demurely in front of her and her slightly stricter posture. Bonnie had rather good posture, but I could tell the difference between good posture and _proper_ posture. I'd been raised that way, after all.

"I'm fine," she repeated, and I felt cold dread punch me in the gut.

I didn't move from where I was standing, just watched as Bonnie unconvincingly said that everything was fine. It bloody well wasn't. It wasn't Bonnie. It wasn't. I reviewed the facts. Bonnie was a witch Emily had obviously been present. Could ghosts…

"You're not Bonnie," I said very, _very_ quietly, my eyes dead serious on hers.

"Who else would I be?" She questioned as if confused, and I had to give her credit where credit was due, it was a marked improvement in terms of impersonation.

I wasn't falling for it.

"You're not Bonnie. You're Emily." I stated slowly. She took a step forward as if still in the middle of deciding whether it was best to continue pretending or owning up and I somehow held my ground. (In reality, I was bloody fucking terrified).

"I can't make you leave, I'm not a witch," I assured her hastily, still quiet for fear of Caroline overhearing. "I can't do anything like that, so please…don't hurt her. You'll give her back to me safe and unharmed, Emily. You'll do as you please, I know, but you _will_ give my friend back as she was when you took her. She's your descendent, a Bennet witch. You won't hurt her."

Impassive eyes stared back at me and I swallowed.

"Please keep her safe." I implored quietly, and then stepped aside so that she could leave the bathroom. "If you can hear me, Bonnie, I'm sorry. I didn't know this was going to happen or I would have warned you. You'll be okay, I promise. I didn't see this, but I've dreamt of farther in the future. You'll be okay."

It was Emily, all Emily, reflected in Bonnie's gorgeous green eyes. I steeled myself.

"You're not her, are you?" She asked, and tilted her head slightly to the side. I blinked.

"What?" I breathed. "Do you…do you know what happened to me?"

She inspected me a little closer.

"You died." She said, then paused. "And so did she. But her body was kept alive, and here you are. She…I feel the wildness in you. You are a seer?"

I nearly choked.

"No, not really, I mean-"

I watched a show on television and…yeah, I'm sure that would go down perfectly.

"You've been dreaming." She pointed out so very reasonably I found my fear fading.

"I might have been, yeah," I admitted and then tore myself from my desperate want for answers to focus on what was truly important. "Emily, you won't hurt her. You'll keep her safe and give her back, right? She's your descendant. You made a deal with Damon so that your line wouldn't die out. You wouldn't endanger that."

"You are concerned," she observed and smiled a little. "An admirable trait."

The smile faded.

"I won't let him have it. It must be destroyed."

That was not reassuring in the slightest.

"Wait-" I called, but she slipped past me and hurried down the stairs. Caroline called her name sharply, irritated, but I put a hand on her shoulder.

"Wait, Care," I said, turning my attention to the blonde as Emily-in-Bonnie's-body let herself out of my house. "She's…she's embarrassed. She's been having horrible nightmares lately and when the lights turned off she had a bit of a panic attack. She's really sorry for upsetting you, she just…needs space."

Caroline looked at me like I was utterly, completely insane but relented. She didn't look like she fully believed my excuse, but she accepted it as it made more sense than anything else that had happened so far that night…

The atmosphere officially spoiled, I was, quite frankly, relieved when Caroline decided to head home. Jeremy walked in as she walked out, nearly scaring the living daylights out of us when he opened the door, and, too frazzled to sleep or relax, I decided to do the one thing that could give me peace of mind.

I called Stefan.

I called him and hurriedly and perhaps a little hysterically explained that Bonnie was being possessed by Emily's spirit. I told him that she said she'd been sleepwalking to the old church and…well, as I did so, I made the executive decision to-

_ Bonnie blinked, finding herself alone in a clearing in the center of a pentagram that was smoking as if it had recently been burning. She looked disoriented, almost faint. She didn't even see him coming until Damon sunk his teeth into her neck._

_ Bonnie blinked, finding herself alone…she looked disoriented…didn't even see him coming…Damon sunk his teeth-_

_ Bonnie blinked…alone…disoriented…didn't even see…Damon-_

_ Bonnie…alone…disoriented…didn't…_

"_Damon!" I screamed as I ran up. "Don't!" _

_ Damon ignored me and sunk his teeth-_

_ Bonnie…alone…disoriented…didn't…_

"_Damon!" I screamed as I ran up. "Katherine's alive! She's alive, she's not in the tomb! I swear, I'll explain everything and if you're not satisfied, you can kill me. I swear it. Please!"_

"_Lena?!" _Stefan called over the phone and I snapped back into reality.

"Shit," I gasped, knocking a vase off a table. "Stefan, I have to go."

"_Lena, what happened? What did you-"_

I didn't even bother with a coat, I just pulled on my shoes, grabbed my keys off the hook on the wall and ran out of the house with nothing more than a shout for Jeremy to lock up. If Damon bit Bonnie…of course. This was the moment that sparked Bonnie's hatred of him. It was _supposed_ to happen, at least, it had in the series. But…my vision changed. It looped from me doing nothing to me trying to stop Damon. That meant I was supposed to, right?

I didn't bother thinking any more about supposed to and meant to because I knew that it didn't matter. Not when it came to messing about with Bonnie's life. She'd live, somehow, but she'd be scarred forever and…I couldn't let that happen. Not to my friend.

I parked my car as close as I could get to the church ruins, nearly threw myself out of it in my haste, and ran for all I was worth to get there on time. He couldn't bite her, he couldn't savage her like that. I wouldn't let him. I wouldn't let him hurt her.

I stumbled on them right as the fire was put out and Bonnie came back to herself. Damon was standing stiffly to the side, rage and a want for vengeance clear in his clenched fists. Someone was shouting at him, and it was only when he appeared in front of me, looking absolutely murderous, that I realized it had been me.

"_Damon! Katherine's alive! She's alive, she's not in the tomb! I swear, I'll explain everything and then, if you're not satisfied, you can kill me. I swear it. Please!"_

"Explain," he commanded sharply and I nodded, stumbling away from him.

"I have these dreams, they come true. They're real. I see the past, the present, the future. Katherine comes back to Mystic Falls. I promise, I swear that you'll see her again. I've dreamt it. I don't have all the details yet," I confessed, and was cut off by Damon's hand wrapping itself like a vice around my throat.

"You better not be lying, _Lena_, or I'll-"

He was torn away from me by Stefan, and I collapsed on the floor, trembling with relief as oxygen filled my lungs again. No, no, I didn't want them to fight.

"Stefan, leave him alone, please. It's fine. He has every right to be angry," I said, disgusted by how weak I sounded and cleared my throat. "It's fine."

Stefan looked at me as though I were utterly out of my right mind and his momentary distraction was enough for Damon to turn the tables on him.

"Damon, let him go!" I screeched, panicking for Stefan's sake. Bonnie was watching everything in horror. "Go to the car, Bonnie. Damon, let him go. Talk to me. I'll tell you whatever you want to know, just let go of him."

He wasn't cooperating.

"Damon, please, don't hurt him. Katherine's not in the tomb. I promise. She escaped. She made a deal with a guard and he let her go. She's not in the tomb, Damon. She's not there."

For a second, I was very much afraid that he was going to kill Stefan. I don't know why, but I thought that he would, and then Bonnie and I too. But he let go at last, flashed to my side, and took hold of my shoulders in a bruising grip.

"Tell me everything," he growled, his eyes like shards of probing ice in the moonlight. "Now."

So I did. I told him I had dreams and apparently visions, I told him Katherine had escaped, that she was out there in the world and knew where he was all along…I gave him a brief summary of what Anna told him in the series, only described it as a dream in which a blacked out figure spoke to him. I said two words to him, Chicago, '83, and then, very quietly, I apologized.

The look of pain in his eyes at the idea of Katherine knowing all along where to find him and never seeking him out…I think it broke him.

He pushed past me after that, nearly threw me to the ground with the force he had used to do so, and stalked off into the night, his face terrifyingly, unutterably blank. Stefan at last approached, watching Damon go as I had, with a pitying eyes and a heavy heart.

"Stefan?" I asked as Damon disappeared into the darkness.

"Yeah?"

"Thank you," I told him. "You saved me there."

A rueful sort of laughed issued forth from his lungs.

"I think you might have saved me a little too." He admitted, and it's my turn to laugh. I did so awkwardly and shake my head.

"He wouldn't have killed you," I stated evenly, and then glanced back in the direction of Bonnie and my car. "Stef…I have to go. But before I do…can we…can we be friends again?"

"We're always friends, Lena," was all he answered and I grimaced. He was avoiding the question, I knew (it was hard not to). I took a small, sharp breath of air.

"I'm going to tell her, Stefan," I informed him unsurely for all that I tried to sound confident.

He nodded at me, and I walked back to my car and drove home nearly entirely on autopilot. Bonnie had a thousand questions, but she'd been decent enough to grant me the reprieve of waiting until we reached my house to ask them.

It was to be a long night we spent talking, but a cathartic one. Bonnie and I talked until the first rays of dawn started peeking through my window. There were tears and hugs and eventual chuckles. But most of all, there was comfort.

Whatever came next, we would face together.

_To be continued in The Turning Point._


	16. THE TURNING POINT

_The Turning Point_

The next morning was a brilliant one. I bounded down the stairs in a tizzy, and announced to Jenna with pride as I swung merrily around the railing, "Jeremy's drawing."

Jenna blinked.

"You're kidding," she said, surprise coloring her voice and I shook my head with a wry grin.

"I wouldn't dare!" I announced cheerfully, "and I shan't so much as breathe a word about it for fear he'll stop."

Jenna agreed, it was better to let him get on with it as he pleased and not risk making him stop by being to nosy. She asked me briefly about Stefan, which made me groan because a.) she was still of the opinion that we were/should be dating and b.) I didn't know where we were after our past few encounters, which all ended badly to say the least. I hadn't gotten anything definite out of him, and I was hardly going to chase him down and demand answers.

Jenna shocked me by casually mentioning that Logan Fell had nipped round the house last night. The same Logan Fell whom I was fairly certain Damon had killed.

"What?" I yelped in quiet horror, and she nodded.

"I didn't let him past the front door," she reassured me smugly.

I gave her an encouraging serves-him-right sort of response and spent the rest of the conversation with my mind reeling. He was a vampire. He had come back as a vampire, oh so conveniently when Stefan wasn't going to be hanging around. Worse still, the only thing standing between him and my family was Jenna wanting nothing to do with him.

Jeremy I could be certain wouldn't let him in, and I knew I sure as anything wouldn't, but Jenna…She might have slammed the door in his face this time, but I doubted he was going to give up. How long until she caved?

I was still thinking about it when I got to school, and kept thinking (worrying, whatever) about it until I was startled from my thoughts by a pleasant and not so unexpected sight.

"Caroline and Matt?" I questioned happily to Bonnie, and pointed. Her eyes followed my finger and she nodded, a small smile working it's way onto her face.

"They've been hanging out," she confided, and I was taken rather aback by her scrutiny. Why would…oh. Elena had dated him.

"It's about time," I said with a grin. "They were all awkward with each other a few days ago and I'm really glad Caroline's found someone to appreciate her, you know?"

Because Damon sure hadn't, I thought a little sickly.

"She needs someone nice like him," Bonnie agreed, "as opposed to a homicidal vampire like Damon."

I was once again surprised by the lack of vitriol in her tone when she spoke of him and then rather numbly realized that…he hadn't attacked her. In fact, I didn't even think she had seen him try to strangle me, not from the angle where she had been standing.

She…had no idea of what he was like other than what I had mentioned in passing as we spoke. Sure, she was wary of him, more wary than she was of Stefan because Stefan hadn't been the one to threaten her, but…

"I'm so glad that you know," I told her a bit distantly. "I didn't want to keep it a secret, but when I told you about me I didn't really get the chance to tell you, and then I was worried about your problem with Emily and didn't even think…I'm really sorry for leaving it so long."

"It's okay," she reassured me, turning a little wry as she spoke. "I don't think I could have handled it before last night anyway."

We giggled as I stopped at my locker to put away a book I wouldn't need until later.

"By the way," I started suddenly, my mood going from a bit grim to abruptly excited. "Have you seen our new history teacher?"

The topic shifted to Alaric Saltzman and we spent the rest of the walk to class discussing his good looks with glee. By the time we were settled in our respective seats in his class, we had worked up such a fuss between us that Bonnie, who had previously thought he was attractive enough but not to her tastes, could not so much as look in his direction without either turning pink or giggling.

I'm sure my salacious smirking and the occasional wink I shot at her whenever he did something that was reflected in the list I had shared with her detailing his most attractive points didn't help her with that.

And so the day was spent pretending Logan Scum-Fell (it was rather catchy, wasn't it) hadn't come back from the dead and that Stefan wasn't going to leave me for my safety or something like that. (It's Mystic bloody Falls, I don't know how he can honestly expect me to be safe just be cause he leaves. It's ridiculous.)

It was spent that way until I found Stefan waiting for me outside the school.

"Stef?" I wondered aloud and then hurried towards him and hugged him. "Oh thank God! Do you remember the smarmy news anchor who was trying to get in my aunt's skirt at the Founder's Party? We made a bet, remember? And speaking of which, you still owe me an ice cream. But oh! No! Stefan, he came to my house yesterday and I'm pretty bloody sure Damon killed him ages ago. Know much about that?"

I've never seen anyone go white like that, ever. I didn't even know vampires _could_ go white, but Stefan's face took the cake.

"Logan Fell? Are you sure?" His voice was low and strong and urgent. I blinked but nodded.

"Yeah, my aunt told me about it this morning. Someone turned him. It wasn't Damon, I know that much. But someone did and now he's back."

"We knew there was another vampire in town, but if he's come to your house…" Stefan began and then trailed off in frustration. "Damon's tracking him down right now. I'll go see if I can help him. Is there any way you can keep your aunt and your brother in a crowded public place? At least until I come get you?"

I considered this and nodded.

"Yeah, Career Day's today, and I know for a face Jeremy's planning to go. It should be easy to get Aunt Jenna to tag along."

He already had his phone out trying to contact Damon.

"Good," he told me distractedly. "I'll meet you there, then. Listen, he doesn't have a ring like us, so you'll be safe while the sun is up. Don't leave the school until I'm with you."

"Understood," I said, and saluted playfully.

"Lena, I'm serious," he insisted, putting his hands on either of my shoulders.

"I won't leave without you," I assured him, unnerved.

He sighed and pulled me into his arms in a proper hug, one arm snaking around my waist and the other sliding up the back of my neck. I'd worn my hair up in my usual bun again, and the way his fingers skimmed my bare skin made me shiver.

"Please be careful."

"I-" I found it difficult to speak. "I will. I promise."

We stood that way for a moment longer; his arms holding me flush against him, my hands resting delicately on his strong back. Then, he released me and I stepped back with flushed cheeks, muttered a hasty goodbye, and walked away more quickly than I usually jogged in that awful P.E. class I was still stuck in.

When I got home, I did as I was told and wheedled Jenna into coming to Career Day. It was actually surprisingly simple. I casually mentioned that there was a very attractive teacher who I liked to ogle that she might like to join me in ogling because I had a feeling she would like him and bam. Problem solved.

Actually, there was a little more to it than that, mainly, I found out she had already met him. I teased her a bit because she had flushed a pretty shade of pink when she mentioned it and I told her that my history teacher was the guy I had been talking about, and then we were on our way. Jeremy had been even easier to manage: he'd left even earlier than us.

I lost Jenna briefly in the crowd at one point and panicked. Jenna was Logan's target, after all, and I had lost her. I met Stefan during my search, who took me to the side to update me on the whole situation.

"Damon's not answering his phone," he said in greeting and I rather wished he hadn't. No, that was a lie, if he hadn't opened the conversation like that we would have been forever stuck at the awkward exchange of the most bare-boned pleasantries on the planet.

"What?" I repeated numbly, worry churning in my gut. "Do you think _he_ got him somehow?"

Stefan pursed his lips and nodded.

"I haven't heard from him since I told him it was Logan. I've tried calling but he doesn't answer. Where's your aunt?"

I cringed.

"I've been looking all over for her. I turned my back for a second earlier because Matt was talking to me and then-"

I was interrupted by Jenna's quite timely arrival.

"Hide me," she muttered, nodding a brief hello to Stefan as she took hold of my arm and pulled me closer in an effort to be discreet. "The Scum-Fell has landed."

"The smarmy leech that dumped you via email? What does _he_ want?" I questioned casually, shooting Stefan a significant look over Jenna's shoulder. He stiffened and excused myself, hopefully to find Logan and stake him.

Oh. That was incredibly violent and not very…human…of me.

I pushed the thought away and debated on whether to go somewhere else or stay in the room. There were painfully few people where we were, so I made my decision and dragged Jenna after Stefan where, most regrettably, we were caught up with Logan.

Words were exchanged and I made some bullshit excuse that so-and-so was waiting for us, and I pulled Jenna down the hallway until we came to a large, more populated room.

"Elena, what is going on?" Jenna demanded, clearly unnerved by my behavior.

I was nearly bouncing on the balls of my feet with excess nervous energy; should I share the secret with her or not? No, of course not. That would be idiotic, and there was absolutely no telling how she'd take it and what if someone overheard?

"Aunt Jenna, I'm really worried about you," I said truthfully, and watched her expression of indignity go slack. I took that as a positive sign and carried on. "There's something really weird about that Logan guy, and…well…I'm pretty sure he's on drugs."

Her mouth popped open.

"What?" She breathed, shocked. I didn't want to lie to her, but…there was some element of truth to it, was there not? Blood was like a drug to him now.

"I don't think what he said in that email was true at all; I think he's been on some kind of bender. I…I didn't want to upset you but I went looking for Jeremy after Vicki…you know…I thought he might have gone back to his bad habits and, well, while I looked in some questionable places hoping to find Jer, I saw Logan. He was hitting up with some liquid stuff and he started acting crazy, going on about how hungry he was and how he needed to drink blood. He was convinced he was Dracula or something. Did he act weird at all when he came to the house?"

I felt bad for lying, but I was really, _really_ glad she was buying it.

"He…Oh my God, he kept trying to get me to invite him in. Is that some weird vampire thing from a book? Does he seriously believe that-"

I hushed her quietly, not wanting to draw anyone's attention. I'd managed to keep our conversation at a very, _very_ low volume so far and I wanted to keep it that way. I'd been hoping that everyone else's overlapping chatter could hide our talk from Logan.

"I don't know, Aunt Jenna, but if he tries to talk to you again, just walk away. If he comes by the house again, just…don't let him in. Slam the door in his face. I'm scared that one day he'll go off on you in a bad way while he's hallucinating. Please stay away from him."

She nodded dumbly.

"Uh, hell yeah I'm going to stay away from him. What a creep! What a-"

"Hey, Elena. Jenna." Alaric interrupted quite charmingly, causing my aunt to grin and me to smirk. I couldn't help it. It was _Alaric_.

As much as I would have enjoyed staying behind to ogle him for a while, I resisted the urge and made a great show of jumping, startling both of them, and sheepishly pulling my phone out of my back pocket.

"Sorry," I excused, 'embarrassed.' "I forgot I had it on vibrate and I got a text and…"

I cleared my throat bashfully and excused myself, going so far as to unlock my phone and pretend to type a text message as I walked out of the gym. When I glanced back in my phone's reflection, Jenna was smiling and chatting animatedly with Alaric. I grinned to myself.

Success.

Jenna would be safe with Alaric. Like, definitely safe. More safe than she would have been with me, at any rate. I wandered around, dutifully avoiding Logan (though I didn't see him anywhere) until at last I crossed paths with Stefan. He was just walking in from outside, and he looked a cross between relieved and on edge.

"What happened?" I asked him as he came to meet me. "Have you heard from Damon?"

"He found Logan earlier and was shot. Wooden bullets, same kind he used on me. Damon's _pissed_…and on his way."

I grinned.

"Suck on that, Scum-Fell!" I cheered quietly, a mischievous grin on my face. "You made Damon angry! Now he's going to smash!"

I had been hoping to amuse Stefan but the look on his face was anything but. It was disappointed, almost, and perhaps a little…jealous?

"Stef, you okay?" I questioned and he forced a smile to his face.

"I'm fine, just wondering where Logan's went." He said, and then a tad too casually asked, "So Damon's the Hulk now?"

I sniggered.

"Absolutely, but only for tonight. I mean, Bruce Banner is a generally nice guy and Damon's kind of a dick. Also, Damon's more devious. He's really more like a villain, you know, from those old films with the planes and the mustaches?"

He laughed.

"Alright, so Damon's the Hulk today and a bad guy with a mustache the rest of the time. What are you? And what am I?"

I considered this for a moment.

"I think we're some sort of duo. You know, like Shrek and Donkey." I said honestly, and was struck by sudden inspiration. "_No!_ You can be the Scott to my Stiles, because you're the supernatural bloke who just wants to live a normal life and I'm the witty slapstick companion that fancies a person who could not be less aware of my existence."

Stefan raised an eyebrow.

"You? Witty?" He joked and I elbowed him, laughing. He pretended it hurt (though I'd barely tapped him even by human standards, I promise), and then started watching me curiously out of the corner of his eye. "So who is it that you fancy, then? The history teacher?"

I nearly choked on the laughter bubbling in my throat.

"Of course not! I might appreciate his rugged good looks and be impressed by…mm, his lifestyle, I suppose…but he's most assuredly Jenna's. In fact, last I saw of them, they were making eyes at each other and whatnot. No…since Were-Bat, Dapper-Suit-Man, and Take-Me-Out-To-The-Ball-Game aren't…available…to me at the moment, I've decided to wholeheartedly devote my affections to Surf-Sand-and-Sex. Sadly, he's very, very far away. I've been pining for him for nearly a day now. It's awful going."

He smiled then, a real, utterly pleased smile.

"You have all these funny nicknames for people…do you have one for me?"

I opened my mouth to answer and was cut off by Matt. I couldn't have been more grateful, because I think I was frightened of what I was going to say. I normally made them up on the spot like I had with Mason Lockwood's just then. (What? He was good looking, off-limits, and quite frankly, as a twenty-three year woman old stuck in a randy teenager's body, I was quite curious as to what it would be like to shag a werewolf near a full moon. It helps that Mason Lockwood's exceptionally easy on the eyes.)

"I saw that guy you asked me to keep an eye out for, Elena," Matt said, jolting me from my thoughts. As I had wandered, lost, looking for Stefan, I'd asked Matt to let me know if he saw him or Logan. I was quite pleased that he had remembered.

"Oh, you did? Where?" I asked with all the interest of someone who wanted to talk about Broadcast Journalism. That's why he thought I wanted to know.

"Sorry," he said, making a face. "He left with Caroline. You just missed them. He offered her a ride home a few minutes ago and yeah."

I shot Stefan a panicked look that Matt didn't quite catch.

"Yeah, thanks, Matt. I guess I'd better go find my aunt…she told me to find her when I was done. I'll see you in class!" I said cheerfully, and walked off with Stefan.

As soon as Matt was out of sight, he told me to stall Jenna and Jeremy until he got back. Let me tell you, it was the most awful twenty minutes I'd ever spent worrying in my life.

When he came back, I nearly rushed him.

"Is Caroline okay?" I asked right off the bat, biting my lip anxiously as I awaited his response.

"She's okay, I took her home. She was shaken up, but…all she knows is Logan attacked her, nothing else." He assured me, and I heaved a sigh of relief.

"And Logan?"

"Damon's…dealing with him."

Ah. Alright then. That was, strangely enough, a relief too.

"Do you…want a ride home?" I asked when neither of us said anything further related to Logan.

He looked extremely hesitant and I didn't want him to say no.

"Please?" I pressed quietly. "So we can…so we can talk."

His head moved up and down just once in confirmation, and since Damon was taking care of Logan and thus Logan wasn't a threat anymore, we left right then and there without my aunt or Jeremy. It was lucky that my aunt and I hadn't carpooled…I had told her I might go out with some friends after as an excuse, although I'd honestly just wanted to have the car handy in case it was needed for some vampire hunting escapades.

I guess now my excuse was true.

"Stefan…are you honestly planning on leaving?" I asked, breaking the silence that had grown so discordantly common between us the past few days, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel as I turned on the road leading to the boarding house.

I once again thanked every deity in existence that Elena drove an automatic car. It was terrible enough being on the wrong bloody side of the car and of the road; I literally could _not_ have managed if I had to use my right hand to change gears instead of my left.

"It's for your own good, Lena." Stefan answered me after a few minutes and I swear I nearly stopped the car. It hurt. It hurt a _lot_. I told him as much.

"I don't _want_ to hurt you, Lena." He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "I'm just not good for you. You…you deserve better than getting dragged into these messes with vampires. What if you get hurt one day? You've already gotten hurt. Vicki Donovan _bit_ you."

"I'm not a child, Stefan." I told him sharply. "Ignoring the ridiculous argument that everyone's a child to you because of your age…I'm not a high school student, Stef. I'm twenty-three. No, that's a lie. I would have been twenty-four the first week of November."

"Because I came here, Lena, Damon came. Because Damon came…" He motioned around us in a wordless gesture at the deaths Damon had caused. "If I leave, Damon leaves, and then everything goes back to normal. It's for the best."

"What if it didn't?" I asked quietly. "Go back to normal, I mean."

Honestly, one of the things I loved most about Stefan was how easily he understood what I was saying. I liked to think that we got each other, he and I. He certainly got me, because as soon as the words left my mouth he took a sharp intake of breath in understanding.

"What have you seen?"

A rueful smile touched at my mouth.

"Quite a few things, Stef. Not as much as I'd like, given the circumstances, but enough. Didn't you ask yourself why I haven't begged, pleaded with you to stay? You know I love you, you do, don't you? You're my best friend. You know that. So didn't you wonder why?"

"You want me to leave?" He sounded hurt and I hastily shook my head to reassure him, slipping one hand from the steering wheel to place it on his arm.

"Never," I told him, keeping my eyes on the road. "I just want you to have a choice."

He was quiet for a moment.

"Why?"

As soon as he asked, I regretted all but inviting him to. He was my friend and…I didn't want to get him mixed up in all the Originals stuff later on. If he and Damon left, they would be safe. Of course, that raised the issue that _I_ would not be safe, but I had been planning on contacting Elijah via letting slip that hey, look! A doppelganger!

If Klaus found me first, well, aside from the minor downsides of a.) being deprived of the chance to admire my beloved Dapper-Suit-Man and b.) not having the opportunity to convince dear Elijah to, oh, I don't know…_stop trying to kill his brother_?

Either way, I was quite sure I could cut a deal with Klaus. I mean, it was as simple as telling him he needed me alive and human to make hybrids. Problem solved.

"I want you to be safe. You and Damon. I mean, I haven't seen much of him lately, but he's a friend too. This is your chance, you know?"

The look in his eyes was utterly inscrutable.

"You're trying to protect us? Protect _me_?"

My cheeks were flushed with color.

"You don't have to sound so…so _incredulous _about it," I muttered defensively. "Just because I don't have super-vamp strength or fangs."

"It's not that." He avoided my gaze, choosing instead to stare at the Boarding House as it came into view. "You…you shouldn't have to feel that…it's your job to protect me."

A muted grin pulled at my mouth.

"See where I'm coming from now?" I asked perhaps a bit smugly, and then faltered at the serious look he turned on me.

"Lena, if you're in danger…"

"I'm not," I lied unabashedly. His stare was so unnerving, I relented. "Well, that depends on your definition of danger…? I'll be alive and healthy and protected-" _Yeah, definitely protected._ "-and all that in the end."

Yeah, as long as I popped out a few kids so that the doppelganger could appear again and spent the rest of my life as Klaus' personal blood-bag, I had nothing to worry about. In fact, Klaus would probably be incredibly accommodating, to a certain extent. Humane, even, as long as I complied. I'd get pregnant through artificial means, probably, pop out the kid nine months later and surely he wouldn't expect me to actually raise a child myself?

That was incredibly heartless, I reprimanded myself slightly in my mind. But…it was to an extent, at least, true. I had never wanted children. It wouldn't be fair to any son or daughter of mine to always be second to my interests, and quite frankly I was terrified, absolutely completely terrified of…well, of ruining them.

No, I would not raise any children I had for the sake of continuing the Petrova bloodline. Klaus could do as he pleased. He'd treat them well, obviously. Ironically enough, for his hybrids, Klaus would probably end up being a vicious guardian of Elena's bloodline for the rest of time. And-

"What are you thinking, Lena?" Stefan asked me softly, and I realized that we were sitting in the car outside the Boarding House, and that at some point between me rather automatically pulling up to the driveway and setting the car in park, Stefan had taken hold of my wrist.

His thumb gently brushed my palm, as if that was as close as he could get to holding my hand. It was nice, I supposed, and I was elsewhere mentally, so I let it be.

"About…my dreams, I suppose," I answered, subdued.

Silence reigned.

"Lena, do you want me to leave?"

"No." I was appalled that he might even consider it. "Of course not. I can't imagine not having you around, Steffy. But…I don't know. I'm…I'm scared. I don't want you to get hurt. I don't want anyone to get hurt. And…I don't know what I can change and what I can't. How am I supposed to keep everyone safe if I don't even know _that_?"

It horrified me to realize that I genuinely _was_ afraid.

"That's not your responsibility, Lena. What happens, happens. No one can fault you for that."

I buried my face in my hands.

"But I _know_. I _know_ what's coming. If I can't use it to help the people I care about, what good am I? I…I want Elena here, Stefan. I want the real Elena to come back and do her thing. I-"

I choked on a sob and lost it.

Stefan sat rigidly still for a moment and then unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of the car. The thought flickered briefly in my mind that he was just going to leave me, just like that…

He surprised me instead by opening my door, unbuckling my seatbelt, and pulling me out of the car into his arms.

"It's okay, Lena. It's going to be okay." He promised quietly, as if he were trying to convince himself as much as me. "I won't leave you, Lena. I…I _would_ have. I was planning to."

I knew it. After all, the best reason he would have had to stay was his relationship with Elena and I wasn't her nor was I interested in being her for him. Obviously, I'd noticed he seemed to have a bit of a thing for me…it was just because I was the doppelganger's body, though. I was confident it would blow over sooner or later.

I didn't want to lose him.

"I was going to leave to give you the chance to live a normal life," he confided in me quietly. "But…if you're going to be mixed up in the supernatural for the rest of your life no matter what I do…there's no reason for me to go, is there?"

My lips curled into a little smile, and I viciously wiped at my eyes.

"No," I agreed. "There's not."

"Then I guess I'm staying," he said, and I was filled with such grateful affection for him I hugged him back hard before breaking away pensively.

"Stefan?" I asked tentatively. "Can you keep a secret?"

I knew he could, of course, but I needed to hear him say it.

"I won't tell a soul," he assured me gravely, and I carefully, carefully tilted my face so that my mouth was nearly brushing his ear and whispered a single word so quietly, I feared he might have missed it even with his supernatural hearing.

It was clear from the careful arrangement of his features that he had.

"My name," I said simply in answer to his unasked question. "That was my name, before."

A look of sudden understanding crossed his face.

"That's why you've always answered so easily to Lena, why you pronounce it Lee-nah instead of Leh-nah. It's your nickname…from your memories?" He surmised, surprised and accepting and a little bit pleased.

A wry and strangely sad laugh escaped my lips.

"My da always thought the alternatives were too common."

"Do you want to come in?" He asked abruptly, glancing backwards at the Boarding House as if his mind had been elsewhere and he was trying to focus on something else.

"I don't see why not," I answered with a grin, and took his proffered arm and let him guide me to the house.

Things felt solidified and tentative between us all at once, as if we had reaffirmed the bond of our friendship and then found ourselves at a loss as to where we stood. Either way, we went back to things as they had been, making snacks and settling down to watch a movie and flinging pieces of popcorn at each other. (I _might_ have been responsible for starting that, but who's pointing fingers?)

It was fun, like really, truly fun. It was my best friend and I hanging out, and it was beautiful. Also, _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_ is perfection, I don't care what anyone else says. Even broody Edward Cullen types like Steffy couldn't disagree.

And so it was that we said goodbye with laughter still written on our faces, and I climbed into Elena's car and started driving home. I didn't see the dark figure on the road until it was too late. I hit it head on and the car swerved and rolled like a toy motor chucked across the room.

I stayed surprisingly calm, I think, and only screamed and cried a little. Until, that is, the man I'd hit started crawling to his feet as his bones snapped back into place like a fucking werewolf transformation in reverse and then _coming right towards me._

_ Then,_ I started shrieking like a bean-shìdh and sobbing like a fresh-made widow.

I was stuck and I couldn't get out, the seatbelt intended to stop me from going through the bloody windshield was stopping me alright. I was dangling, helpless, bleeding and bruised like a piece of tenderized meat at the butcher's. And whatever the hell could heal like that (my bets were on _vampire_) was a starving carnivore looking for an easy meal.

_To be continued in Bloodlines._


	17. BLOODLINES

_Bloodlines_

I was going to be sick. I was going to be _sick_. Whether it was from fear of the man walking towards me or simply from having been tossed around and hung upside down, I didn't know. As the man I had hit got so close that all I could see was his legs, I decided it was fear.

That's it. I got Elena Gilbert's body killed because I ran her car into a fucking vampire. I was supposed to be keeping her body safe until our situation could be fixed. That's what I'd promised her. She was just a teenage girl, she didn't deserve this.

I was going to die, and with me I was going to kill the girl that meant so much to so many people and I was going to ruin Klaus' chance at finally breaking his curse and…

The man, no, the _vampire_ stopped right next to the place where the window used to be, crouched down and then…zipped away.

I blinked in stunned confusion and then shrieked again as someone else took his place.

"How you doin' in there?" Damon asked lightly, as if trying to calm me down as he peered in at me with wide, strangely innocent eyes.

"It won't unbuckle," I said, a wretchedly tremulous tone to my voice.

"I'm going to get you out of here." Damon promised, glanced upwards as if judging the possibility of lifting the car and then made his decision.

"I want you to put your hands up on the roof," he started, and I did as he asked. "Just like that. Ready?"

I nodded once, sharply, praying Elena's arms were stronger than they seemed to be.

"One…two…three…"

He wrenched the seatbelt from it's holder and I found myself pleasantly surprised (and still hysteric, but hey, who's counting?) at how light Elena's body was. Light enough for her toothpick arms to hold up, at any rate. I held myself up just long enough to slip my bent legs around the steering wheel and lower my knees to the ground, a bit like doing a tumble but in slow motion. Dizzily, I let go of the roof, which was now the floor, and crawled out the window.

Damon helped me as best he could, murmuring quiet reassurances as he did.

"You okay?" He asked as he picked me up. Everything was spinning above me and dull, throbbing pain threatened to knock me back to Elena's age. I shook my head slowly, although it probably looked more like I was just moving it around in circles for all I could control myself.

"Can you walk?" Damon asked next, and I nodded tiredly. Legs felt fine, and by fine, I meant that I could feel them, which was good enough.

"Anything broken?" He pressed, and I opened my mouth to say no but all that came out was a half-intelligible at best groan. I shook my head again, hoping he would understand.

It appeared that he did because he reluctantly slid me into an upright position, and I wobbled where I stood for a second before black threatened to overtake me.

"Whoa!" Damon called hastily, and caught me before I fell. Oh, I'd been falling. I thought the world had just been tilting a bit.

And then, when my mind was at its fuzziest, at its weakest, the images came.

"_For someone who seems to want to contact me so very desperately, you've taken great care to ensure that I would not be able to find you." _

_ My breath caught in my throat as I pressed the phone even closer to my ear._

"_I have the doppelganger," I said, and I could all but feel him stiffen on the other end of the line. "Actually," I corrected, "I _am _the doppelganger, and I want to help you break the curse."_

_ A beat of silence passed._

"_You're lying," he accused in a vicious snarl._

"_I'm not." I responded simply. "And if I am, when we meet, you can kill me. There's something you don't know about the curse that you need to know before you break it."_

"_I don't know who you are or what you think you know of such things, love," he threatened pronouncedly, holding on to his tone of false calm so tenuously that I felt a sliver of fear cut into my heart. "But I promise that if you are lying or trying to play some sort of game with me, you will regret it."_

"_No lies, no games. You need to take my life to unlock your werewolf side, I want to not be permanently killed because your mother was a psychotic bitch who cursed you at her husband's bequest to sweep her affair under the rug. You want to be able to make hybrids, don't you?"_

_ I could hear his angry breathing, faint and stuttering, as if he were trying to wrestle himself under control. _

"_We need to talk, in person." I told him. "I'll call you when it's time, so don't change your number, yeah?"_

_ There was a sharp intake of breath that indicated he was about to let that simmering rage loose as it boiled over, and I decided to stay on the line much longer would be foolish._

"_I promise you, Klaus, you will be free when this is all over, and you will have your hybrids. I've seen it. And I will do whatever I must to help you reach that point."_

_ My finger rested lightly on the end call button, but I couldn't leave it at that. _

"_I would say 'always and forever,' but that's not my life expectancy. So, between us, let it be 'until the very end.' I look forward to finally meeting you-"_

_ Click._

I came to with a shuddering gasp, my windpipe so tight, I believed for the briefest of seconds that I was at home, myself again, having an asthma attack.

"Lena!"

It all came crashing back and I absorbed my surroundings in panic, nearly choking myself with the seatbelt as I jumped in my seat, rattled. Seatbelt. I was in a car. A moving car. And that voice, it was…

"Damon?" I questioned, and stared at him as he smirked a little from behind the wheel.

"Mornin'!" He said cheerfully, and I bit back a groan. Aside from the fact that I had a murderous headache, it was obvious that it would soon be worse as Damon was in right proper little shit mode.

"What happened?" I asked, frowning, and then cringed. "No, I know what happened. Thank you, Damon, for getting me out of the car."

He was silent for a moment and I was afraid he was going to say something to make me want to punch him in the face (again) so I hurriedly asked him where we were to divert him.

"Georgia," he said simply, and I stared at him.

"Right, yeah," I uttered slowly. "Georgia. Care to share why?"

"How you feelin'?" He asked me instead, and then decided to offer me his prognosis before I answered. "There's no broken bones, I checked."

I raised an eyebrow at that.

"Thank you," I responded civilly, and then made a bit of a face. "Did you think to check for concussion before I passed out?"

"There wasn't much time for that," he answered a little defensively. "Anyway, I didn't think I needed to, since you were tossing around so much. Have a nice dream, Lena?"

I frowned, about to ask him what on earth he was talking about and then gasped.

"Oh my God. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God." I stuttered, eyes wide. "I'm going to contact him. _I'm_ going to contact _him_. I give him my number somehow, and he calls me."

I was near hyperventilating. That conversation had never happened in the series. I knew for a fact that it hadn't. And if it really was some sort of vision…then I had to assume that it would happen. But why? Why would I do that? Why would I _risk_ that?

It struck me so suddenly a shudder went through me.

"Oh."

I must have done it for Elena. As in, for when she gets her body back. If I arranged things before hand, I could make the ceremony as painless as possible. Elena's family and friends would survive, Klaus would get what he wanted, and there would be no need to desiccate Elijah a thousand times because of trust issues. Sure, Elena would have to attend her own personal blood drive at Klaus' will, but that was better than losing her Aunt Jenna, wasn't it? I couldn't imagine losing Jenna, and I had hardly lived with her for a few weeks.

Also, she wouldn't lose Stefan, although she technically wouldn't have had him but still. Bonnie would also not have been as traumatized, and if all went according to whatever plan I would end up concocting, the whole Mikael-and-then-Esther-try-various-means-of-murdering-Klaus thing could be skipped over. And Alaric wouldn't have to die.

"Hey, you mind letting me in on whatever's going through that pretty little head of yours?"

I jumped.

"Sorry," I said, closing my eyes and leaning my head back tiredly. "Sorry, I just…what are we doing in Georgia, anyway?"

"Oh no," Damon cut in, pointing a finger over at me as he drove. "You don't get to do that. You _saw_ something. And since today you're going to be telling me everything I want to know, you can just start there."

My brow furrowed.

"Everything? I told you I'd tell you everything about _Katherine_." I reminded him. "Not _everything_. And Katherine was neither in nor mentioned in the dream I just had."

"I don't think you're in a position to argue, _Lena_." He drawled, watching me with a calculating look. "I brought you on this little road trip as a little insurance. Tell me what I want to know, and I won't leave you stranded on the side of the road without a way home."

I sighed.

"I forget sometimes that you're not him."

"Yeah? Well don't. I'm not Saint Stefan and I never will be," Damon said sharply, irritation bleeding into his tone.

I laughed. I laughed and he glanced at me as if wondering how I had the _nerve_ to laugh. At him. Needless to say, he did not appreciate it.

"Why do you always think it's Stefan?" I asked mildly when I had gotten my mirth under control. "Actually, no. Don't answer that. Everyone else might compare you to Stefan, Damon, but I have no interest in doing so. Haven't I proven that to you already? I have never, not even _once_, not even now that you've killed people I personally know, tried to change you. I've been angry and upset with you, but I have never, _ever_ tried to change you."

And there I stopped abruptly because I was getting off topic.

"I was comparing you to the you in my…" I frowned. "I really am going to have to explain things properly aren't I? Just know that I was comparing you to an alternate future version of you. Honestly, I like you much better the way you are now. Other you is a bit of a desperate, love-sick sap. You're much easier to deal with and I actually _enjoy _your company."

His hands gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. The silence between us was a tense one, and it was very apparent that neither of us wanted to break it. I'd made him uncomfortable, I think. I mean, I'd also made _myself_ uncomfortable, because I normally kept my thoughts to myself. At least, I _had_.

I wondered vaguely if my sudden inability to keep my mouth shut once I'd opened it was a result of inhabiting Elena's body or…having traveled to an alternate universe.

"I'm twenty-three." I said suddenly, and paused thoughtfully. "Actually, I'm twenty-four. My birthday is on the first of November. My real one, not Elena's. I don't even know when hers is."

I loved my birthday. It struck me as irrationally but wildly unfair that I would now need to make due with Elena's. I didn't even know when Elena's was. Oh well, I suppose I'll wake up to a nice surprise one morning and find out that way.

It sounds more fun than figuring it out myself.

"You do realize you're in high school, right?" Damon asked dryly, though there was a tenseness in his tone that told me his mind was racing through possibility.

"I'm a body-snatcher." I deadpanned, and then turned in my seat so I could better see him. "Worse still, I'm not even bloody joking. I have an entire lifetime of memories that are most certainly not Elena Gilbert's and none at all of hers. As far as I know, I literally woke up one morning in this body and started having funny dreams."

He stopped the car. He actually stopped the car.

"A _body-snatcher_?" he repeated sarcastically, impatiently, like he was about to threaten to drain me dry if I didn't tell him the truth.

"I'm telling the truth," I repeated, and then, hesitating…

I told him everything. Well, not _everything_, obviously. But I told him enough about myself to satisfy him, convinced him by sharing my former life with him. And I told him what I knew of him and Stefan and their affair with Katerina. Er, Katherine.

"She's not in the tomb, Damon. As I understand it, she had made a deal with one of the people meant to guard the church beforehand and slipped away to safety. She's out there, alive and well and…" I trailed off, massaging one of my temples with my free hand. I was glad he had pulled over, because I felt suddenly sick and needed out. "Excuse me, I need a bit of air."

I clambered out of the car as quickly as I could, gulping down a greedy lungful of air first thing before succumbing to the dizziness threatening to introduce me quite intimately to the ground and doubling over, leaning against Damon's car for support.

He flashed to my side so quickly to take hold of my arm in a supportive gesture, I didn't even realize he'd gotten out of the car.

"Apologies," I murmured, and straightened when the worse of the swirling vortex of color that was the world at last spun slowly to a stop. We were on a little road in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fields and a dilapidated farmhouse.

He shrugged a little in response.

"I'm used to it. Most women tend to feel a little faint in my presence."

I ignored that, instead focusing on what was really troubling me.

"Damon, why are we in Georgia…?" I questioned, glancing up at the sky as if it would help me focus. Road trip, he said. Georgia. What was significant about a road trip to Georgia? Georgia, road trip, Katherine, tomb…

No, you know all those things, focus on the _when_, I told myself.

After Elena discovers vampires, after Vicki, after Logan, after Lexi…

"_You killed Lexi,_" I accuse him suddenly, wheeling around to face him better. "You killed Lexi and now you're going to get your ass kicked because you want to ask your witchy friend how to get into the tomb? I just told you she's not there!"

Damon scoffed.

"Yeah, and I was supposed to just believe that?" He demanded, pushing off his car that he had been leaning against, crossing his arms dramatically over his chest.

To be fair, I wouldn't have taken some stranger's word for it either.

"Can't you tell if I'm lying?" I asked hopefully, although when I really considered it, that seemed awful. What if I needed to lie one day? How irritating.

Damon was smart to be suspicious, though. Being so untrusting gave him the edge he needed to get off with his diabolical scheming. Actually, when he wasn't blinded by his desperate devotion to the object of his affections (Katherine or Elena), he was pretty cunning.

And…I could use that.

"You still believe Katherine's in the tomb," I began slowly, furiously plotting in my head. "And nothing I can say will convince you otherwise. Alright. I can work with that."

It hit me like a ton of bricks.

"So, what if I help you open the tomb to prove she's not there?"

I didn't have a chance to blink before Damon slammed me into the car, his fingers leaving sharply defined bruises on my arms, his expression dangerous.

"What do you know about opening the tomb?" He demanded, no longer cool, and a hint of a smile flickered across my face. This was fun.

"I know that there's another way. You need Emily's grimoire, and you need witches. I can get them for you, I think. And…if you swear you'll help me with a little thing of mine, I'll find the grimoire for you."

"I could compel you," Damon shot back, his fingers digging painfully into my skin. I resisted, and I mean I put a _Herculean effort_ into resisting, the urge to tell him to try it.

I kept painfully, _painfully_ silent instead, and mull over what I could say to prevent him.

"What if the something I want your help with is…fun?" I asked cautiously, trying not to smirk because the idea formulating in my head was brilliant and the answer to my vision. "I need to get in contact with someone without letting him and more importantly his…associate, know where I am or how to find me. I guarantee that if you help me, you will be causing him, his associate, and all those poor sods working for them endless frustration and misery. I'm trying to play a game, you see, and I can't outmaneuver two opponents with unlimited resources alone."

I thought I saw the teensiest flicker of interest in his face and barreled on.

"But with _you_ in the mix…" I continue, letting a hint of my excitement slip into my voice through in an action more me-like than any so far in my time as Elena. "You're a schemer. _Definitely_ a schemer. In fact, I would even go so far as to call you _diabolical_, and from me, that's a compliment. If you were to agree to help me set the figurative board so the game I'm playing tilts in my favor, I can take a couple extra naps for a few days until I dream where the grimoire is for you."

I didn't expect it to be a problem, seeing as I very clearly remembered that it was in his daddy's tomb. His expression was dangerous, his posture screamed of indecision, and…

My phone rang.

Both of us blinked, and I merely raised an eyebrow at him, gesturing with my hand for him to see who it was, and immediately promised not to make any noise if he answered it by pretending to close a zipper over my mouth. Damon rolled his eyes and slipped my phone out of the pocket of his leather jacket, glancing at it idly and hummed mockingly.

"It's your boyfriend," he very nearly sang, and I shot him a deadpan stare.

"I'll take it," he assured me innocently, not even giving me the option (I didn't expect him to).

"Lena's phone," he called so mockingly that I rolled my eyes at him. Always trying to rile Stefan up. Although, to be fair, Steffy could definitely use some lightening up.

"Lena?" He repeated innocently. "She's right here. And yes, she's…fine."

He turned to face me, holding out the phone.

"He wants to talk to you."

I sighed and took it.

"You're fretting over nothing, Stefano," I announced in opening, allowing a secret grin to spread across my face. "And hello, by the way."

"_Lena?"_ He asked, audible relief in his voice. "_I found your car. What happened? Where are you? Damon…He hasn't done anything, has he?"_

I wondered vaguely whether that was supposed to translate to _did he bite you?_ or _has he compelled you?_ and couldn't quite decide.

"No worries, Stef. I won't be coming home with bite marks or missing a few hours here and there in my memory." I assured him calmly. "I ran a vampire over with my car yesterday and essentially wrecked it. Damon showed up, saved the day, and decided to add abduction to his probably endless list of felonies. He and I are on a little bonding trip right now."

"_Lena, tell me where you are." _Stefan said firmly. "_I'll come get you."_

"No, sorry." I responded cheerfully, reaching up to brush a few strands of hair loosened from my typical bun away from my face. "If I leave him now, I won't be there to save him when he gets knocked on his pathetic arse and staked, so you'll understand why I have to stay."

"_Have you…"_ Stefan began, and trailed off with difficulty.

"Seen it?" I offered blithely. "Yes. Did you know people tend to get angry and vengeful when you murder their significant other?"

"_Where are you, Lena?"_ Stefan asked again, sounding stressed and frustrated and angry all at once. "_I'll come down and help him. He's not your responsibility."_

"You weren't there. In my dream, I mean." I responded flatly. "So that plan's a no-go."

Actually, I was really, _really_ concerned as to what was going to happen. Mainly because I remembered what happened, not actually dreamt about it. It wasn't like with that odd dream I had about meeting Elijah, though obviously that hadn't happened to be proven prophetic or not. But stopping Damon from biting Bonnie…that _had_ happened. All I knew about what was coming was that Damon was going to get knocked on his arse and at the very last minute Elena came in and appealed to Lexi's ex's better nature.

Not sure I could do more than sweet-talk him until Damon could possibly get up and stake him? I was hardly like Elena, who had a habit of 'always saying the right thing.'

"_Be careful."_ Stefan said at last, and it surprised me. I mean, I was chuffed, too, because that little note of resignation in his voice meant that he was acknowledging _me_ as a grown woman more than capable of making her own decisions. I don't recall Stefan being so obliging with the real Elena.

"_I…You know what you're doing, right?" _Stefan pressed a little anxiously, and I blinked at what an uncannily accurate observation that was. His doubt, I mean.

"Of course," I lied cheerfully. "Anyway, I'll see you when we get home, okay?"

He seemed reluctant, but he wasn't overbearing in his effort to change my mind, which I appreciated greatly, so I left him with a chipper ta-ta and handed my phone back to Damon.

"I'll be wanting that back when we get home, clear?" I warned him, a hint of a smile pulling at my mouth. He rolled his eyes but as he pocketed it as smirk settled across his face indicating his amusement.

We stood, leaning against the car for a moment before I had finally had enough and raised an eyebrow at him, motioning to the car as if to ask him if the highlight of our trip was to be standing on the side of the road for a few hours.

He opened the door for me and all but shoved me in, grinning cheerily all the while.

It was only then that I noticed a suspicious lack of the familiar little bounce of cool metal against my chest. My necklace was gone.

I bit back a laugh. Of course my necklace was gone. That's why he had threatened to compel me. Because he thought he could. Well, I wouldn't say anything to the contrary because Damon wasn't someone I could trust. I did, trust him, that is, but I didn't want to take any chances. It was really for the best that he thought he could compel me, even though he can't.

"So…the man I hit," I started, opening conversation on the safest topic I could manage. "He was a vampire, right? Not…anything else?"

He raised an eyebrow at me.

"Anything _else_? Like what?" He asked, scoffing. "Of course he was a vampire. Not anyone I know, but definitely a vampire."

I briefly thought of Mason Lockwood.

"You're probably right," I fibbed easily, and snickered a little. I bet Surf-Sand-and-Sex, as I had come to call my favorite werewolf, could get up if he were hit by a car. "Have any ideas on who he is and what he was doing in the middle of the road?"

"No," Damon replied, sounding a little annoyed at not knowing, "but I'd like to find out."

And then, we were pulling up to…a pub. Right.

"Any chances of me getting a drink?" I questioned idly, nearly salivating at the idea of a bit of bevvy. What? It felt like it had been ages, and I'd been forced into a teenage girl's body that just so happened to be a magnet for supernatural nut jobs in a town that was literally going to be full-to-bursting of said supernatural entities that all seemed to want a bit of her one way or another. I felt a stiff drink was the least the universe could do.

Damon raised an eyebrow as he unbuckled his seatbelt. I mimicked him and got out of the car, stretching. I didn't think to the first time we had stopped, and my back was protesting.

"Got anything specific in mind?" He drawled sarcastically, which I ignored in favor of actually answering his question.

"Cheeky Vimto," I supplied, shortly bowling some of Elena's hair out of me face. "_Extra_ Cheeky Vimto. Manhattan. Brandy Savage. White Russian. Blood and Sand. No, no cocktails. Imperial stout. Schwartzbier. Belgian blonde. Dom Perignon Vintage Brut. I don't know where to start!"

It was true. I'd never been one much for regular drinking, but I adored a good night out here and there. I used to meet my pals at the Westroom or more recently at the Bon Vivant near the Queen Street Gardens on Thistle Street. It seemed like so long ago now.

"Don't look at me with those judgy little eyes," I teased as Damon looked a little knocked for six at my answer. "I was twenty-three before I woke up like this, and I'd like to think by this point I know what I'm about when it comes to my liquor."

"Let me buy you a drink, then," Damon suggested firmly. "As an apology for essentially kidnapping you. I shouldn't have done that. It was wrong of me."

"What did I tell you, Damon?" I asked lazily. "You don't need to play nice guy with me."

He scanned my face with a calculating look as I stepped passed him as he held the door of the bar open for me.

It was an open, surprisingly well-lit place, and it was practically empty. No surprise there, most pubs back home were slow early on. It made sense. I glanced around curiously; there was something about the place that sparked my interest. It was like…it was supposed to mean something to me, as if there were some significance to it beyond what I thought.

I was so distracted trying to figure it out, that I practically missed a beautiful, awe-inspiringly tall woman hop over the bar and pull Damon into a kiss. It wasn't until they pulled apart for air and smashed their lips together again that I was drawn from my reverie.

"Six out of ten," I said loudly, an impish smile on my face. "Should've been higher, but you lost points for Damon being, well, Damon."

The woman broke apart from Damon and let loose a laugh that somehow communicated that I'd endeared myself to her, and the next thing I knew, I had been bundled onto a seat at the bar besides Damon and was being supplied with precious bevvy. I could have cried. As it was, I settled for simply enjoying the funky sort of ambience about the place.

"Listen up everybody!" The woman, no, the witch I knew to be Bree called out, raising a bottle of something that looked quite promising up as if in a toast. "Here's to the man that broke my heart, crushed my soul, destroyed my life, and ruined any and all chances of happiness."

I laughed a little, clearing my throat in hopes of covering it up.

"Someone's been busy," I sang good-humouredly at Damon, who smirked in response.

"Drink up!" Bree interjected, setting a shot before each of us.

I took mine and tipped it back in union with her, and blinked suddenly at the rush.

Oh my God, I thought in astounded disbelief. Elena's a lightweight.

"So, how'd he rope you in?" Bree asked, pouring another drink and apparently utterly oblivious to the fact that I was sitting there, completely numb, as I felt the drink affect me. It appeared that, while Elena's body had inherited my tastes, as I understood, it definitely had not inherited my tolerances. Of all the terrible luck…

"He didn't," I answered lightly, neatly covering up my inner mourning at the idea of not being able to handle my bevvy like I used to.

"Honey," Bree told me knowingly, a smile curling on her lips, "if you're not roped, you're whipped. Either way, just enjoy the ride!"

I laughed and deflected the awkwardness of telling her it wasn't going to happen (ever) and instead asked her how it was that _she_ got roped in.

"College," Bree answered easily, looking almost nostalgic and not, I'm certain, reminiscing of childhood innocence or the like.

"Sorority girls?" I questioned Damon slyly, pretty sure that's what he was doing there. It sure wasn't a want for a higher education.

"I've been on a college campus, yes," was all he said aloud in answer as he tossed back another shot. The smirk on his face told me that he had a very, _very_ good time there.

We, well, I, because Damon obviously was a part of it, got the whole life story from Bree and I 'found out' she was a witch. I feigned mild surprise very well on that, thank you very much. We talked a little more and then my phone started ringing. I cringed when I saw it was Jenna. Oops. I'd forgotten that as Elena I was no longer the independent sovereign of myself: there were people who I had responsibilities to, people who felt responsible for me.

"It was lovely meeting you, Bree," I interjected before Damon could answer her question of _what do you want_? "You know, just in case my aunt succeeds in murdering me through the phone and I don't get the chance to come back."

An easy smile crossed my face as Bree nodded in amused understanding and offered me her hand to shake. I took it, and as soon as I did, I regretted it.

I was no witch, so I felt nothing from Bree, but she certainly felt something from me, because her face twisted into an utterly perplexed, calculating expression, as if she couldn't begin to make straight what she was sensing but was giving it a hell of a shot.

"She?" Bree said aloud, as if she weren't sure where she were going with the word and didn't like not knowing.

I took an unsteady step backwards, and my mobile went off again.

"I'd better take this," I announced cheerfully, and hopped off the stool I'd been sitting on, waving my phone around as if nothing odd had happened. "Excuse me."

I made my way out of there as quickly as possible, despite the half of me that wanted to stay behind to play at damage control. She what? I wanted very badly to know what it was Bree was going to say before she cut herself off. There must have been more to it than just 'she.' But I needed to collect myself. And I really did need to answer the phone.

"Jenna?" I asked vaguely weakly, which was completely unintentional but quite fortunate all the same. I was holding the phone a little ways off from my ear, just in case Jenna wanted to shout at me before letting me explain.

"_Where are you?_" She demanded right off the bat, and I cringed. I wasn't precisely _accustomed_ to people speaking to me in that tone.

"I'm at Stefan's house," I answered, equally pathetically. "Jenna, my car…it flipped. I don't know what I hit. Stefan's brother Damon found me on the road this morning. I was so scared. The seatbelt wouldn't come off. I was stuck, and I just…I wasn't ready to go to school. Damon called and left a message for you. I'm okay, I was just…rattled. Damon's been looking after me. Stefan told me he and Bonnie would take me home when school was over."

"_What?"_ Jenna all but screeched, clearly stupefied by my sudden babbling.

"I didn't want to worry you," I told her meekly. "I'm fine, Aunt Jenna. I promise. I'm just tired, is all. May I please stay until Stef and Bonnie get back? I promise I'll come home right away."

"_Are you hurt? Why didn't you call me right away?"_ She demanded, and I could hear an undertone of hurt and bare disappointment in her tone. I would have to phrase my answer carefully so as not to make her feel like she was failing as a guardian.

"I'm sorry, Aunt Jenna…" I murmured quietly, abashedly. "I…I know better now that my head is clearer, but I was scared and irrational and I begged Damon not to tell you that I crashed the car because I didn't want you to be angry with me. It was stupid, but it's true. Damon is the one who insisted on calling you to let you know I was alright."

"_No one called the house, Elena."_ Jenna told me a little weakly, moving something around in the background. I figured she was at the house, because it sounded rather like she was in the kitchen, maybe, rather than at school.

"He left a voicemail," I lied, deliberately letting confusion color my voice. "I gave him the number and he called right in front of me."

"_Did you give him my cell phone number or the house number?"_

I let an embarrassed 'oh!' escape my lips.

"I…I don't know. I think I might have gotten them mixed up. I wasn't thinking straight. I'm sorry, Jenna. I didn't mean to worry you…It's just…the car…and I didn't want you to be mad…and…I don't want to be in a car right now."

She was silent for a moment, and I almost felt guilty for bringing up the accident that had killed Elena's parents, that had killed Jenna's _sister_.

"_You know that I'm not mad, right? I'm just glad that you're okay, and I'm grateful to Stefan's brother for taking care of you."_ Jenna informed me very seriously. _"Have you reported your accident to the police yet?"_

I cringed, not having thought of that, and panicked. What had Damon done with the car? What on earth could I say?

"Hello, is this Jenna?" Damon asked after appearing suddenly behind me and plucking the phone from my fingertips. I whirled around, startled, and then felt myself relax. I was sure he had heard the rest of the conversation, so I didn't exactly have to worry about him blowing my cover or anything.

"_Is this Stefan's brother?"_ Jenna asked a little sharply. _"Damon, right?"_

"Yes," Damon answered pleasantly, leaning against one of the cars I had been pacing between idly. "I tried calling you earlier and left a message. Elena is fine, I got her checked out after I pulled her from the wreckage. She was very frightened, but she's fine, no concussion. She was terribly upset and asked me to take her back to the Boarding House. I tried calling you again after Stefan left for school, but I think she might have given me the wrong number."

I couldn't hear what Jenna said in answer to that, but Damon just sort of smirked a little and answered in the same conciliatory tone he used when he pretended that Stefan was just a teenager who didn't know about vampires to get on Caroline's mom's good side.

When he hung up, smirking in an abominably smug sort of way, I was shocked.

"Did you compel her over the phone?" I asked suspiciously, and then stopped. "Can you do that? I thought you needed eye contact? Unless you compelled her before this…"

I narrowed my eyes at him.

"You haven't compelled her before this, have you?"

"You're welcome," Damon drawled pointedly, but didn't confirm or deny my accusation. I searched his self-satisfied face for a moment and then grinned sheepishly.

"Thank you, Damon. And I mean that sincerely, because I was debating faking sick or bursting into tears so that I could call her later. You've saved me a lot of groveling."

"I try," was all he said, a smirk settling over his face.

Banter was established, and despite the underlying theme of general distrust between us, I had a great time having lunch with him, flinging chips at his face whenever he said something inappropriate (which, as you might guess, was often) and getting poked in the side for my troubles. I'd warned him on the way in about what was going to happen, I told him that Lexi's ex would attack him. I warned him, and I was fairly sure that he was going to let it happen solely so as to prove or disprove what I'd told him about my dreams.

He was humoring me, at the moment, and nothing more. I knew that. But proving what I knew now was a step to gaining his trust and thus that much closer to cutting out a lot of the unnecessary opening-the-tomb drama and getting him to help me with my little project.

I took a sip of my drink. If all went well, things would go a hell of a lot more smoothly when Klaus came for me. Which would, quite frankly, in turn make things smoother for the foreseeable future. Damon and I, I considered smartly, would make a great team.

Although, I was concerned by Bree's reaction to me. Bonnie had seen a crow because of Damon messing about. I didn't know who this "she" was, although I assumed Bree had meant me, but clearly whatever "she" was doing was enough to unsettle the witch.

I very sincerely hoped that her bad feeling wasn't in reference to my decision to change things farther than simply avoiding basic drama and praying everything else went according to the figurative script. (It'll be a relief and a pleasure beyond definition to get to episodes I'm familiar enough with to feel comfortable in).

As it was, though, I had more important things to worry about. So I turned my attention back to my burger and chips and instead began to focus on how to actually save Damon's life.

_To be continued in Bloodlines II._


	18. BLOODLINES II

_Bloodlines II_

I threw back my last shot with a deep, resounding purr that made Damon raise an eyebrow at me. Elena's tolerance, while nothing on what I was accustomed too, was by far more respectable than I'd realized, at least once I'd had a decent meal. I had underestimated her. And so, apparently, had everyone else at the bar.

"Honey, you should be on the floor!"

I smirked and said nothing, and found that while my movements seemed sluggish, my mind was as sharp as it would have been in my previous body. Not that it really mattered, I suppose, because it meant nothing if I couldn't force Elena's awkward, suddenly unwieldy limbs to obey. I wondered, vaguely, if I would pass out when I reached I, Lena's, limit, or Elena's physical limit. I wasn't too sure.

So I shrugged to myself and tossed back the next shot, and at some point after that, found myself being happily carried away by some women whose names I couldn't keep straight to the pool tables, which put an instant grin on my face.

"Any of you fine ladies play snooker?" I called, choosing a cue and bouncing it a little in my wrist to test its weight. I liked heavier cues best because I rather fancied the weight of them helped me keep the stick steady for better precision, and I'd been fortunate enough to find a twenty-one ounce cue that was a bit shorter than the rest.

As it turned out, one of them did. Delighted, I chalked my cue and politely offered the woman the opportunity to break. And then my bloody phone rang. I groaned.

"If you'll excuse me," I said a little dryly, my words a bit slurred but not incomprehensible in the slightest, "I do believe that would be my legal guardian ringing. Just a mo'."

I went out a side door because it was closer and Elena's legs were a little wobbly. As soon as the door had shut on the noise of the bar behind me, I answered the call, not bothering to see who it was. Turns out it wasn't Jenna.

"Steffy?" I greeted in surprise, having completely missed whatever it was he was asking because honestly I was a bit tipsy and I'd been expecting Jenna…

"_Will you be home soon?_" He repeated cautiously, and I appreciated his discretion.

"We haven't even left," I answered lightly, and keeping in mind that Elena had been lured off or something to be used as Damon-bait, I decided it would be in my best interests to avoid saying anything else outright. "The night's not over yet."

I rather hoped he'd catch on to what I was implying (that Damon hadn't been attacked, yet, so to speak), and cut him off in a manner that made me cringe and apologize as he had been in the midst of asking me if I was sure I had everything in hand.

"It's fine, Stef, honestly. I'll see you when he decides we can go back, alright?"

I never heard what he said in answer because a hand clamped over my mouth as another grabbed my waist and in my brief struggle, my phone was lost to the floor.

_ Oh_, I thought to myself, frowning. Stefan would never let this one go.

And thus it was that I was kidnapped to some weird chemical plantation looking thing by Lexi's ex, whose name I don't remember, as Damon-bait.

I vaguely remembered this from the show that Lexi's boyfriend (a.k.a. my kidnapper) beat the stuffing out of Damon, but realizing as I did when Damon walked up that it was actually going to happen, that Damon was actually going to be _hurt _like that…

"Damon," I started and literally felt the blood drain from my face when Lexi's boyfriend appeared out of nowhere and slammed Damon with a baseball bat.

It was the most violent thing I had seen in this world since I first arrived, barring when Damon grabbed me by the throat during the Emily incident.

Whatever his name was slammed the bat into Damon once, knocking him the ground, then again and again and _again_. The force he was using was, of course, inhuman, and it was baffling in a numb, disconnected sort of way to imagine that any person, vampire or not, could survive so much blunt force trauma.

I was moving before I really realized what I was doing.

"Leave him alone!" I demanded shakily as I made my way to him. If I could get him to stall, I might have enough time to pull some sappy Elena Gilbert emotional plea bullshit out of my arse to save Damon's. "He hasn't done anything to you!"

It was a lie, of course, but he didn't know that I knew that.

My heart nearly stuttered to a stop in my chest as he ignored me in favour of dousing Damon with petrol from a tank.

"Leave him alone!" I shouted again, ready to pull on the man's arm like an idiot to get him away from Damon.

He turned bloodshot eyes surrounded by prominent black veining towards me with a snarl, baring his fangs in warning, and I stopped in my tracks and decided to revise my strategy.

"Who _are _you?" Damon asked almost incredulously, although the glance he snuck at me made me suspect that he'd caught either caught on to my 'pretend neither of us know anything about him' game or…or he honestly didn't know what was going on.

As I watched Lexi's boyfriend's face twist with rage, I very fervently hoped he did.

"That's perfect," Damon's assailant uttered almost derisively. "You have no idea…"

It seemed as good an opportunity as any to start interfering, so…I did.

"What are you on about? You kidnapped me! You attacked him out of nowhere and he doesn't even know you!" I protested, feeling my heart pound a feverish tattoo in my chest.

Whether my nervousness was born out of the lie or simply because I was that afraid of failing, I don't know, but pound it did.

"He killed my girlfriend!" He roared at me, turning back to Damon and pouring the rest of the petrol over him, utterly infuriated, his voice cracking with grief. "What did she ever do to you? _What did she do to you?"_

"Your girlfriend?" I echoed, Lexi's face at the forefront of my mind, sweet and impishly pretty.

He threw the empty tank to the side.

"My girlfriend went to visit Stefan," he spat, as though the name were a curse. "And Damon killed her, got it?"

Damon tried to sit up but was felled by another ruthless swing of the bat.

"Lexi was your girlfriend," I 'realized.' "She came for Stefan's birthday. She came and…"

Oh God, I was sweating bullets. I didn't know what to say. I tried to remember what Elena spoke to him about. She had spoken to Lexi at the Grill and I…I hadn't.

"Weren't you human?" I blurted, and was gratified to at last receive a reaction from him.

He turned towards me with a devastated, tortured face and in a low, choked up voice uttered words that made my blood run cold.

"I _was_."

I didn't know what he meant by saying it that way, but it terrified me into stunned, frozen silence. Lexi didn't turn him.

I wondered with horror what he had been through since Lexi's death, the grief, getting to the point that he believed he needed to get revenge on her killer. Finding someone to turn him, adjusting to his new existence on all on his own.

My heart almost went out to him. Almost.

After all, it's hard to feel bad for someone as pull out a lighter and prepare to set a friend of yours on fire.

"Stop it," I begged as I found my voice. "Stop it, please. If Lexi loved you, then this isn't you. Lexi was a wonderful person, and she would never have been able to love a man capable of this. If she loved you, you won't do it."

I knew in that very instant that I had made a grave mistake.

"_If_ she loved me?" He repeated, nearly trembling in rage. "How dare you?"

Damon moved on the floor and was brutally kicked in the face; his assailant flashed to my side with inhuman speed, murder written all over his face.

"How _dare_ you?" He repeated again. "You don't know _anything_ about Lexi and I."

For a brief, wild moment I was sure I would be the one that would die.

"Sorry, sorry!" A cultured, rich voice called out in an almost laughably casual manner. "I didn't realize I was running so late!"

Lexi's boyfriend whirled around with a snarl and-

And a hand was thrust through his chest and out the other side in a shower of blood.

"What a mess," a fairly tall, dark-haired man whose features looked vaguely familiar somehow muttered, and then turned to me with a bright grin. "You certainly know how to get into trouble don't you, whichever face you're wearing."

My breath caught in my throat.

"What?"

He tilted his head to the side as if he were trying to figure out what I was thinking and then grinned.

"You're so cute!" He exclaimed, and leapt forward like a predator to pinch my cheeks.

Murderous rage welled up at the core of my being.

"You are in the presence of a lady, _sir_," I snarled in the most aloof, proper manner imaginable. "Comport yourself as such."

His grin widened.

"My most sincere apologies, my lady. I forgot myself whilst basking in the light of your endlessly enchanting spirit. You will forgive me, won't you?"

"Who are you?" I demanded archly, hoping Damon would get up because, well, people who smiled in that easygoing way while scaring the shite out of you were normally psychopaths. Ripper Stefan, Kol, Klaus, Silas, I am looking at the four of you.

"Your faithful Prince Hal," he responded with a flourishing bow. "And before you voice the complaints you are no doubt thinking, I am the way I am because of your influence."

"Prince Hal?" I parroted, unnerved. Still, there was something oddly…innocent about him, as though, despite the fact that he had killed in front of me and who knows how many times more…it seemed as if he had a gentle soul.

Which was of course ridiculous.

"You can be my _fair Kate_, if you like."

Surreal. That's the only word that could possibly begin to describe the situation I currently stood in; Damon twitching and groaning as he recovered, a dead shrivelled body on the floor right beside him as I chatted with a murderer.

I knew with utter certainty by this point that this man, whoever he actually was, was somehow connected to me being here in Elena's place.

Just as I stood trying to work out what the hell was going on, 'Hal' turned to Damon, who was just now struggling to his feet, with ice cold intention. He crossed over to him in two easy steps and hauled him up by his shirt, a scathingly easy smile on his face as he did so.

"I don't like you. In fact, were it up to me, I would leave you to answer to your crimes." 'Hal' informed him neatly, and to the surprise of Damon and I, he set the Salvatore in question down and dusted him off a little in a friendly and strangely threatening manner.

"However," he continued, and dragged Damon by the collar until they were nearly nose to nose. "My lady wants you alive. So, do yourself the favour and never forget that you owe your life _utterly and completely_ to her."

He let go and Damon fell.

"You've kept us waiting a long, long while, lady mine. The other members of your court are most eager to meet you, you know." Hal said to me, a vague smile flickering over his face as he lifted my hand to his mouth to brush a kiss across my knuckles. I felt him press something into my palm as Damon's crumpled form stirred.

"Until we next meet, fair Kate."

And…and then he was gone.

I sucked in a shaky lungful of air and then ran to Damon.

"Alright there, mate?" I asked lamely, not knowing what to say but well aware that he would live. "I suppose this is the wrong time to say _I told you so_?"

Damon groaned.

"Who _was_ that dick?" He demanded crossly, trying to sit up but not quite getting there.

"I have no bloody idea," I admitted honestly, and clutched the folded bit of paper Hal had given me more tightly in my hand.

Damon was silent for a moment, no doubt recovering from the vicious bludgeoning he had received at the hands of Lexi's boyfriend. After a moment, he spoke.

"How did Lexi's boy toy know I was in town?" He asked, and it wasn't a rhetorical question.

"Bree," I supplied thoughtlessly, and then rather regretted it.

Damon didn't _get over _things like betrayal. Oh no. He got _even_.

"Hmm, tell you what: why don't _you_ go have a seat in the car," he told me cheerfully as he stood up, dangling the keys near his face. "And I'll catch up."

"Sounds good," I answered, thinking it an excellent opportunity to open the note Hal had left me. Answers at last! After weeks of being Elena! "Meet you there!"

He tossed the keys to me in an easy, smooth motion, and if it were more thanks to Elena's natural reflexes than my own hand-eye coordination that I caught it, I wasn't complaining. I hurried to the car as soon as he left, unfolding the note.

A little cutting of a flower I instantly recognized was placed tidily in the centre, its stem knotted around a ring. When I picked it up, two words were revealed beneath it.

_Save Bree. _

I pocketed it with a pounding heart and ran for all that Elena and I were worth in the direction of the bar.

"You're _lying_," I heard Damon accuse when I stumbled in.

"Emily's grimoire. Her spell book-" Bree tried to explain, as Damon's eyes flashed furiously towards me over her shoulder. She hadn't noticed me come in, absorbed as she was with Damon and trying to save her own skin. "If you know how she closed the tomb, the reversal process will be in her book. You can open that tomb-"

"I told you to wait in the car." Damon interrupted her, looking peevish.

I shrugged.

"Sorry, I'm more used to doing the telling than as I'm told."

I cracked a grin at Bree, who had whirled around anxiously, as if fearing being attacked from behind. By _me_. It was a laughable thought.

"Are you satisfied that I was telling the truth, Damon?" I asked patiently, wondering briefly why Bree wasn't giving Damon an endless aneurysm or something.

His glare turned icy.

"Not the whole truth."

I debated whether informing him that I had no idea Hal or whoever he was would be showing up or not and decided to focus on saving Bree.

"I told you about the grimoire, which Bree has just confirmed. I promised you I'd find out where it is, didn't I? And I even promised you witches to open it for you, so that you could see for yourself that it wasn't there."

I tilted my head towards Bree.

"I happen to like Bree. Bree is my friend." I told him firmly. "And I shall be very cross with you if you do something stupid like ripping her heart out."

Damon looked mutinous, which was never a good sign.

"If you promise not to kill her, today or any other day, then you can lord it over Stefan all you want that I let you have some of my blood."

I offered him my wrist.

"You're thirsty, right? From getting your backside handed to you? You can have a sip or two as long as you promise not to take so much that I feel sick. That's what friends are for, right?"

He looked gob smacked.

"Did you just offer me your blood?" He asked, daring to look at me as though I were the insane one here. Still, I felt unsure, suddenly.

"It…It won't hurt too much, will it?" I asked, a tad regretful for even opening my mouth.

Damon smirked.

"It'll feel really, _really_ good," he suggested, waggling his eyebrows. "Scout's honour."

I made a face.

"Firstly, I'd rather it hurt. And second, no promise, not a drop."

Damon looked gleeful in a way that told me he was probably imaging rubbing Stefan's nose in it and Bree was looking between us as though we were mad.

"I, Damon Salvatore, do hereby swear that as long as the witch, Bree, does not again cause me harm or injury, I will not raise a hand against her with ill intent or otherwise. Happy?"

I mulled over the words of his oath and then nodded.

"Sounds good." I said in affirmation, and then turned to Bree. "I'm really sorry about all this. Also, just letting you know, your, uh, friend is out there. I don't think the vampire that killed him is still out there, but be careful if you go out to take care of him."

Bree's expression tightened at my casual admission that Lexi's boyfriend had joined her in the after life, but she cautiously moved towards me, keeping a wary eye on Damon as she did so. The vampire in question had picked up his jacket and flung it over his shoulder, looking antsy and more than ready to leave.

Bree stuck her hand out for me to shake.

Wary of the gesture myself, I took it.

_ Bree was terrified._

"_I am telling you the truth," she insisted, her eyes glazed over with tears born out of legitimate fear and the remnants of her grief for Lexi. _

"_And I believe you," Damon answered sincerely, reaching up to stroke her cheek. "My dear, sweet Bree." _

_ Whatever words he said next were lost to me as he stuck his hand up through her ribcage and ripped her heart out of her with a stomach-turning squelch. _

_ Bree fell. _

I gasped and jumped back, nearly barrelling into Damon who, in an uncharacteristic show of concern, caught me by the shoulders and steadied me. Bree stared at him in horrified disbelief, the expression on her face telling me without a doubt that she had seen what I saw.

"Damon, let's go." I asked quietly, wanting nothing more than to be out of there, away from her. "You got what you wanted. Let's leave. Please."

Damon thought about it for a moment and then nodded.

"You, Bree, owe this little lady a life debt." He informed Bree with a catty grin, not knowing that she was more aware of that fact than he could have possibly imagined. "C'mon Lena, let's blow this joint. I'm thirsty."

I nodded and waved a little uncomfortably at Bree.

"It was nice meeting you," I said in farewell, my voice not as exuberant as it would have been had the night not been marred by revenge and murder.

I let Damon sink his teeth into my wrist in the car, which he did with surprisingly little mockery or general teasing. He took a few slow, long sips and pulled away, even being so kind as to nick his thumb with his fangs to squeeze a few fat drops of his own magical vampire blood onto his teeth marks to seal them up.

I slept on the car ride back, the note in my pocket a heavy weight that haunted me even in my dreams; it had been a long night, and when I woke up next, I was safe at home in my room. Jenna by some miracle had bought my bullshit story about the car crash and informed me that she quite liked Stefan's elder brother, such a charming guy, etc, etc. Things were changing, slowly, but surely, and I wondered what the coming days would bring. I had proven that I could successfully save a life, if a minor one in terms of plot.

I had proven it was possible, and that was all the ammunition I needed.

Yes, things would be changing around here. A lot, if I had anything to say about it.

_To be continued in Unpleasantville._


	19. UNPLEASANTVILLE

_Unpleasantville_

I was visiting with Stefan the next morning, bright and early. (I hadn't slept a wink after sleeping the majority of the car ride home with Damon, and it wasn't as if Steffy would be upset if I roused him from his slumber). There, I very innocently asked Stefan a question I did not expect him to be able to answer.

Needless to say, I was astounded when he did.

"He told my Aunt Jenna _what_?" I repeated, appalled.

"That you were adopted," Stefan reiterated, almost meekly. A brief look of horror flickered over his face a beat later. "You knew that, right?"

His panic was quite frankly hilarious.

"I'm not made of glass, Stefan," I scoffed, and then nodded to reassure him. "I did. I'm the illegitimate child of my brother's uncle and whatever her last name is Isobel who your brother changed into a vampire at her request. Also our ridiculously attractive history teacher is kind of in a way my step-father because he was married to Isobel."

Stefan blinked.

"You have a crush on your step-father." He deadpanned, and I whacked him in the arm.

"Of course not," I denied, and he raised an eyebrow at me in disbelief. I cleared my throat loftily. "I merely recognize his handsomeness, that's all. And I do believe I told you who I had a crush on."

Stefan looked rather like he was resisting the urge to scoff.

"Sand-Surf-and-Sex, right?" He questioned dryly, and I sniffled.

"Surf-Sand-and-Sex, actually." I corrected him airily, and then shot him a wicked smirk. "I have it on excellent authority that he is a right _animal_ in bed."

Katerina would know, after all.

"And how good, exactly," Stefan asked in a low voice, "is this authority? Do you know from…personal experience?"

I hadn't noticed him leaning closer until then, and put a hand on his chest to push him back, which he obliged to.

"No," I admitted, a tad disappointed by the fact. "But my authority is an excellent authority, and her experience is vast and…varied."

So varied, in fact, that Steffy himself was on her list of conquests and he didn't even realize it. Even aside from Surf-Sand-and-Sex, so was Dapper-Suit-Man and Were-Bat, for that matter…Katerina had excellent tastes.

"Anyway," I changed the subject hurriedly, because Stefan was freaking me out with his Heathcliff staring, "Got any idea as to who the git that wrecked my car was?"

He didn't, and he was very clearly on edge because of it. The conversation dwindled into a more brisk, business related sort of chat from that point on: Stefan supplied me with vervain for Jenna and Jeremy, told me to be careful and all that, and when I was on my way out, stopped me.

"Lena, do you know anything about this?"

I contemplated that for a moment.

"I have no idea who the guy that made me wreck my car was, but I think…"

It hit me with such sudden force that I gasped.

"_That dick!_" I exclaimed forcefully, feeling rage swell up in my chest. "Who uses pizza as an excuse to get invited in? Oh, I'm going to give him a telling to he'll never forget! I'll stake him myself and then we'll see if he wants to keep the change."

Stefan looked taken aback.

"Lena, what are you-"

"See if I tip that wanker!" I snarled, throwing my hands up into the air in a gesture of outrage. "Messing with a woman's food. What a twat!"

And, of course, it was then that those terribly inconsiderate visions of mine struck.

"_I'm talking about Atlanta," Stefan clarified seriously, if maintaining a veil of civility._

"_Oh, yeah," Damon 'recalled,' flipping through the book in his hands and then idly closing it. "Lena had a _blast."

_ He was keeping to the deal he had made with her; at this point, Stefan with his overprotective nature would be a hindrance to their shared plans. Better for him to think Lena had just saved his life and that was the end of it, that Damon was still working alone. _

_ Lena was right, Damon mused, when she confided in him that Stefan, though understanding that she was not a child and was responsible for her own decisions, was still too inclined to hover and thusly become the cog in the works of the well-oiled machine that was their plot if permitted to interfere. _

"_For whatever reason," Stefan continued, ignoring the jab, "Lena considers you a friend, Damon. I don't want to see her get hurt because of her involvement with you."_

_ Damon sneered. _

"_It sounds like you're a little jealous, _Steffy. _It must be hard on you, knowing that I didn't need to compel Lena to get her to let me sink my teeth into her skin…" _

_ Stefan slammed Damon against the bookshelves and-_

I came back to myself with a shuddering gasp.

"Damon, you twat, why do you always have to be such a bloody-"

"What'd you see, Lena?" Stefan asked curiously, knowing from experience, I supposed, that I had seen something.

I turned to him with a far less than impressed look.

"I appreciate your concern for my well-being, Stefan, but please be kind enough to remember that I am a grown woman who is more than capable of making her own decisions and evaluating risk. That would include refraining from chastising your brother over little things like our jaunt to Georgia and the like."

I thought about things a little more and decided that I'd be better off ruining the shock-value of Damon's carefully hoarded secret so as not to cause any more trouble between the brothers than I apparently would if Stefan decided to have a 'chat' with his brother anyway.

"By the way, before Damon tries to give you an apoplectic fit with the information, I gave Damon some of my blood during the trip to Georgia. From the wrist."

Stefan looked like he was an inch from having an apoplectic fit anyway.

"I wasn't compelled. He doesn't know about my countermeasures, as far as I know. He didn't ask for it, I offered it to him myself without prompting. And, fair warning: he's probably going to rub your nose in it."

Deafening silence. And then-

"You gave him your blood?" Stefan asked, staring straight ahead of himself as though glancing at me would make him lose control and pounce.

"Yes, I did." I answered firmly, because it was my blood and I could do as I pleased with it. "I offered him a few sips in exchange for swearing not to hurt my witch. If you ask me, I got the better end of the deal."

Stefan was grimly quiet.

"You said the vampire that crashed your car was invited to your house," he began when he at last decided to speak. "Has that happened already?"

I shook my head, strangely thankful for the subject change.

"No." I answered promptly. "I'm not sure when it happens, only that…"

I broke off abruptly. Jeremy met Anna around this time! I would need to keep a sharp eye out if I were going to enact stage two of my plan…

"I'll let you know when it does," I promised, knowing full well that it would set Stefan's mind at least partially at ease. "Thank you again for the vervain, Stef. I'll call you later."

I reached up and pecked his cheek without thinking and, taking up the box he had given me, practically barrelled down the stairs and out the door, hollering a hurried farewell as I went.

Because I had left in such a hurry, I had time to stop at home to pick up the folder I kept all of my sketches and my notes on my plan in. I made sure to grab some loose sheets of paper too, and spent nearly the entire day at school outlining in super secret code my plan for the future.

And by 'super secret code' I mean that I wrote it in a way that it would not be evident to anyone else what it really was: as a fan fiction.

If anyone wanted to find out my secret plot for world domination, they had better be ready to read through the entirety of _the_ _Silmarillon_, _the Hobbit_, and _the_ bloody _Lord of the Rings_, because otherwise, they wouldn't understand a whit.

That, and I managed to foist the vervain necklace on Caroline with little bother as soon as school let out. That she accepted it so easily was incredibly convenient and served as further proof that Stefan, admittedly, had great taste.

"It's so pretty, thank you!" Caroline cooed prettily, and sincerely enough that I rather wished I really had gotten it for her as a present. "God, it'll go with, like, everything! What's the occasion?"

I thought quickly.

"You're one of my best friends, Caroline, and I feel like I haven't been there for you like I should have. So…think of it as one of those corny best friend necklaces, but in far, far better taste," I said, cracking a grin.

The latter half of my explanation helped disperse any tension and allowed me to get to the heart of the subject I really wanted to broach.

"That, and I was worried about how you were avoiding me like I had the plague, so I asked Bonnie about why and she mentioned you were spending a lot of time with Matt lately."

She looked a little nervous and apologetic when she opened her mouth to speak, but I cut her off, not wanting to let herself get too worked up about it.

"I'm happy for you, Caroline," I told her, trying not to seem to overly cheerful as to seem insincere. "Matt is a nice guy and he'll treat you the way you deserve, and I couldn't pick a better person to trust one of my best friends to after you were hurt the way you were by Damon. So…may I be once again graced with my lady's presence in my life?"

If I sounded amused in a dry way when I asked the question, it was the right way to sound, because she relaxed a little.

"I was going to talk to you about that. I was," she began, sounding much more at ease having received my 'blessing' and more than ready to talk, "but there's not much to say. You know, we've hung out a few times. That's it. But…I just feel like…we've peaked as friends."

She paused and her eyes scanned my attentive expression.

"This is weird. I shouldn't be talking to you about this. It's weird. It's weird, right?"

"Not at all," I tried to reassure her. "I mean, we're not in primary school any more. Why shouldn't you be able to talk to me about these things?"

She looked at me like I was stupid.

"Because he's your ex?" She squeaked almost indignantly for Matt's sake.

"Exactly. He's my ex. He's free to pursue whoever he pleases, as I am."

Caroline looked a washed out shade of miserable at that statement.

"But…that's just it. He's still hung up on you, Elena."

I cringed at the name.

"Caroline, if he doesn't see what an infinitely lucky guy he would be to have you, then he's an idiot. And I know Matt," I lied. I mean, technically I knew _of _him, and knew what I had learned teaching him snooker that one time. "He's not an idiot. Maybe he's being a little stupid now, but trust me. He'll get over it."

I hoped so, at least, and by the look on Caroline's face so did she.

We didn't have much to say after that, so I bid her farewell with a quick hug and went on my merry way to the Grill where I planned on meeting up with Bonnie to 'hang out.' We had a bit of a snack and I hung around until Damon, as arranged, came to pick me up. I'd had a dream about receiving a scary phone call from the pizza man, (who, coincidentally, had been invited in anyway by Jeremy despite my absence from the house) and decided to spare myself the experience by spending some quality plotting time with Damon in his car before heading over to the Boarding House to choose my dress.

Why bother going shopping in a store when Stefan was more than happy to dig a few suitable 50's dresses out of the attic for me? Elena was thin as a whippet (though I think she's put on a few pounds since I came…) and could fit into practically anything.

"Good evening, _Miss Lena_." Damon greeted me almost sarcastically.

"Good evening, Mr. Salvatore," I returned sweetly, and said cheerio to Bonnie, accepted his arm, and let him lead me to the safe haven that was his car.

Once we were both buckled in and on the road, our impromptu meeting began.

"I hope you have good news for me, Lena."

"In face, I do," I responded airily. "But before I tell you, and I promise I shall tell you before I get out of this car where it is, I would like to explain a few things."

It was a curious look I got in return, a quirked eyebrow and a surprisingly patient stance that told me he was in a relatively good, indulgent mood. So, I continued.

"An old buddy of yours from 1864 is in town, and I have plans for her. Plans that require me to open the tomb, as I agreed to do for you to prove that Katherine isn't there. I would like you to wait until I've secured her cooperation to act. I mean, you'll have to wait regardless until I round up the witches we need…I think I'll have Bree join us, because if I recall correctly it's a very difficult, draining spell…"

I was very nearly lost in my thoughts for a moment, and caught myself.

"Yes. Well. Is this amenable to you?"

"You're less fun when you're all business. Haven't you heard? All work and no play makes Lena a dull girl," he teased, and I sniggered.

"You'd know about playing, wouldn't you?" I joked, and then rolled my eyes.

"But seriously. I want her on our side."

"You want her to owe you," Damon corrected cheekily, and I grinned.

"Careful now, keep being so charmingly insightful and I might fall for you," I warned him, sniggering. "You in, though, or not?"

Damon made a show of considering it.

"Fine. But only," he stipulated, wagging a finger at me in an exaggerated manner which I slapped a way faux haughtily, "because you're beginning to convince me."

I sat up a little straighter in my seat.

"Really?" I breathed, intently searching his face for any hint of untruth.

He shrugged, turning away from my scrutiny.

"Sure. But don't think I won't keep up my end of the bargain if you're wrong."

"_Damon! Katherine__'__s alive! She__'__s alive, she__'__s not in the tomb! I swear, I__'__ll explain everything and then, if you__'__re not satisfied, _you can kill me_. I swear it. Please!__"_

How could I forget?

Instead of dwelling on the subject, I opted to move on.

"Have you made any progress on the homework I gave you?" I asked, not really having expected him to, since it felt as though we'd only just gotten back from Georgia.

I was utterly astounded when he dropped a phone into my lap.

"Consider it a thank you," he drawled, "for saving me from a fiery death."

I looked down at my lap.

"That wasn't really me, though," I admitted guiltily. I mean, it had very little effect on our deal. He placed my ad and got the phone to me in exchange for my work in facilitating the opening of the tomb. But…for him to thank me made me uncomfortable. I didn't deserve it.

"_Leave him alone!_" Damon mimicked Elena's high-pitched voice. "_He hasn't done anything to you! Stop it, please!_ That wasn't you?"

My face flushed red.

"You're a twat." I uttered with a lofty sniffle.

Damon grinned at me from the seat beside me.

"And you love me for it."

I rolled my eyes.

"More like _despite_ it, you knob."

I flipped open the phone and was pleased to see that it was on.

"Got a charger for this?" I asked idly, and he nodded, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel as he drove aimlessly around. Or what I thought was aimlessly.

"Mhmm," he hummed in confirmation cheerfully. "It's at the Boarding House. And the ad should be posted in tomorrow's paper. Well, in a few hours when tomorrow's paper comes out over there. Your ad, as you wrote it, in the _Lonely Hearts _section."

I sniggered.

"I wish I could see the look on his face when the thing he's been hunting for such a long time literally offers itself up to him."

"What is that thing, exactly?" Damon asked innocently.

"Nothing that involves you, good sir. That would be between me and the man that responds to my ad." I decreed pointedly. "Maybe I'll let you in on the secret once Katerina arrives."

I had told him before that she would come, though I hadn't told him why. It was a tentative friendship Damon and I enjoyed, one that was more dedicated, I think, on my side than it was on his. But we were friends, and even if Damon wouldn't interfere in my plans because he simply didn't care about much else than finding Katerina, there was a chance he would inform Stefan, and, as much as I adored Stefan, I didn't need him breathing down my neck as I attempted to contain the doppelganger situation.

I held the phone he had given me (it was a cheap thing, honestly, a pay-as-you-go-phone as I had requested, to be used to answer, or if necessary return one phone call and then, for safety reasons, be destroyed) in my hands for a moment longer and pocketed it.

Klaus would be reasonable. As long as he got what he wanted, he would be reasonable. As long as I could make him _listen_, he would be reasonable.

I had to believe that.

"It's hidden in your father's tomb," I informed Damon mildly, wanting to clear my head of thoughts of Klaus and doppelgangers until it was time to move to the next stage of my plan. Of course, doing so was nearly impossible when I was sitting in a motor with my co-conspirator on that front, so instead I decided to broach my next venture in preparation.

"Damon, does vampire blood cure the effects of blood loss?"

The sudden silence that reigned was both tense and telling.

"What," Damon started after a moment, his mouth twisting in a horrible, sardonic grin, "did Saint Stefan let loose a little too much after having a taste?"

Clarity is a strange thing. It was strange especially then, when it struck my like lightning and I understood, for the briefest of moments, what Damon was. I had given Damon some of my blood, so of course this meant to him that I must be giving it to Stefan, giving _more_ to Stefan simply because Stefan got everything Damon had and more. It was saddening, somehow, and struck a chord in me.

"No, Damon," I said wryly when I felt I could speak without sounding pitying or condescending. "I don't hand my blood out willy-nilly, even less to a _reformed ripper_ like your brother. I mean, we're pals and all, but I haven't exactly got a death wish, no offence to him. I'm asking because I was thinking of opening a personal blood drive."

The look of sudden incredulity in his face would have been worth any explanation he might have demanded, and it was made all the more sweet by the fact that he didn't.

"If I ever get that far, I'll tell you all about it." I promised trying not to laugh, and then smiled as invitingly as I could manage, using Elena's doe eyes to most devastating effect. "Drive me to the Grill, please? I'm meeting Bonnie."

He acquiesced, albeit with exaggerated griping and whatnot, but I got to the Grill on time so I wasn't all that fussed. Bonnie was startlingly civil with Damon, smiling at him, even, which made me wonder precisely how much of an impact not being attacked by him would make on her role in the future. The level of comfort she displayed around him, though, confirmed what I had suspected: she hadn't seen him grab me by the throat the night he was supposed to have attacked her. She wasn't afraid of him because she hadn't been given a reason to be.

Damon left and Bonnie and I hung out. We talked about a couple things, I informed her that I was adopted but pretended I didn't know who my parents were. She was sympathetic, I made the effort to at least appear confused by it since I wasn't all that upset, and then we talked about her progress in the realm of magic and witchery and all that. We had a nice time and I learned a lot about what witches were capable of.

Since Stefan had been planning to swing by my house to drop off the clothes he'd so nicely agreed to lend me for the dance, I texted him and asked if he'd mind picking me up from the Grill. He agreed, and thus I found myself waiting outside when my phone rang.

"Hello?"

"_Hello, Elena." _

I didn't recognize the voice but I had seen enough horror films to know where this was going. More specifically, I remembered enough of the show to know who I was speaking to. I was not amused.

"It's you," I accused waspishly, though the cold night air was rapidly draining me of the anger that had been keeping my fear in check. "Do you usually get up after being flattened by a motor or where you just trying to impress me?"

"_You hit me with your car," _he answered, ignoring my question with a casual sort of ease that stole away the rest of my flimsy cover of bravado. I as afraid, and every word he spoke made me more afraid. "You___got _away_ from me_. _You won't next time_."

I could have used that moment to negotiate a meeting with his 'boss,' but the knowledge of him brought back the trauma of the car accident and I couldn't. I simply couldn't. I turned tail and bolted into the Grill, and if I insisted rather unfairly that Stefan come get me in person, I wasn't being unreasonable in the least.

"It was that _dick_. The one I ran over. The pizza man." I explained, or tried to, as Stefan listened intently from the driver's seat. Realization struck me suddenly, causing me to whip about in my seat. "Stefan, there was pizza in the fridge this morning."

I saw cold understanding colour his features but didn't register it. I was panicking. If there was one specific scene I remembered about this part of season one, it was Elena getting ready for the dance as the Gilbert fob watch went wild on her bed. And, more vividly than that, the vampire hiding on the fucking ceiling and then _lunging for her neck_.

"I fell asleep last night. The food money Jenna left me was missing from my vanity this morning. I thought she'd taken it back, but Jeremy must have gotten it himself when I didn't wake up. Stefan, he's been _invited in_."

"Breathe, Lena," Stefan ordered distantly, and only then did I realize that I was panicking.

"Stefan, he's going to attack me. The watch vampire-compass thing goes haywire, I think it's you, and then it turns out to be him and he fangs out and tries to sink his bloody teeth into my throat." I babbled, trying to explain the flashes of recollection going through my head. It was different from those weird visions I'd had; this was pure _memory_.

"I meant to give it to you," Stefan muttered suddenly, looking regretful. "The Gilbert watch, that's what you mean, right? It points to vampires. I have it at the Boarding House. Damon got it from Logan Fell."

When he left me at home, he insisted he would bring me the watch first thing in the morning. The dance was tomorrow, and I would be lying if I said I was looking forward to it.

_To be continued in Unpleasantville II. _


	20. UNPLEASANTVILLE II

_Unpleasantville II_

"Is this really necessary?" I asked with not a little disdain in my voice as I fixed my hair, catching sight of them through the mirror. Yes, _them_.

"Can't take any chances, _Lena_," Damon answered idly, reclining comfortably on my bed, his arms crossed behind his head. "I _told_ Stefan we had company."

They had spent the entire day hanging around the house, shadowing me like secret service agents. Damon had come up with the logical plan of using me as bait to lure the vampire in so that it could be 'taken care of' and I'd agreed. Stefan voiced some concerns, I waved them off, and thus it was that I was getting ready for the dance, which I would attend with Steffy as my 'date.'

"Alright, Salvatores," I commanded, a little smile on my face as I compared the way I was inspecting my appearance to the way Kol did before the Mikaelson's ball in the show. "Tell me how pretty I look."

Damon snorted; I turned to face him with my hands on my hips and a mock look of outraged disapproval, but Stefan waylaid me with his trademark sincerity.

"You look beautiful, Lena."

It felt, very suddenly, as though I had something rather scratchy in my throat. I blamed Stefan and his romance novel ways, of course, and tried very, very hard to push the memory of him kissing me from my mind. None of that, I told myself firmly. He didn't mean it. We were friends, that was all. Being _afraid _of Stefan was like being afraid of Bonnie, I insisted to myself, though I knew that wasn't true.

"The correct response," I replied archly, playfulness mingling with the familiar haughtiness I'd been raised into, "would have been something like 'oh, Lena, you know I can't be compelled.' Half marks for wit, the both of you."

Damon growled a little as he sat up, a sharp retort no doubt on the tip of his tongue, and was stopped short by me nearly jumping out of my skin and whirling around to point a finger at him in sudden remembrance.

"Watch yourself at the dance, Damon," I warned him. "If my history teacher sees you, he's going to want to hurt you, and while I would normally encourage you to retaliate with whatever force you deem necessary, he's my step-father. If you hurt him, what I do to you will make a werewolf bite seem like being awarded a knighthood, yeah?"

"A _werewolf_ bite?" Damon echoed derisively.

I sighed.

"They're real, Damon, and their bite is fatal to vampires. We're talking like two days of incomparable agony and hallucinations." I informed him callously, and paused, scanning my room. "Stefan, have you seen my shoes?"

Stefan glanced around and then, finding them on the other side of my dresser, handed them to me. Low-heeled stiletto pumps, in soft, dark red leather. Very nice, if not entirely era appropriate. They were the closest Elena had, though, and beggars can't be choosers. Also, they matched my dress.

"Your history teacher is your step-father?" Damon questioned, raising an eyebrow as he stared me down almost incredulously.

I nodded.

"Yup, and you murdered his wife," I answered him dryly, and then, feeling rather judicious, added, "Well, you turned her at her request, but he thinks you murdered her and as a result went rather Van Helsing on the world."

"A vampire hunter? Really?" Damon scoffed distastefully. "Who was his wife?"

"Leave it, Damon," Stefan said sternly, and for a moment I wondered why before I realized he was simply being considerate of my feelings since Alaric's wife was, well…

"My mother," I answered, and winced at how casually I said it. "Biological mother," I clarified, "not my mom. Her name was Isobel. Remember her?"

Whether he did or didn't, I wasn't afforded the chance to find out.

_ Where are you, pizza man? I wondered to myself as I made my way uneasily through the crowd, glancing around for Damon as I went. I felt uneasy, and I wasn't sure if it was because I was worried about Stefan or because there was something dodgy about the whole thing. He'd gone chasing after the pizza vampire (Noah, a distant part of my mind supplied, his name was Noah) after I'd spotted him near a door. _

_ I hadn't seen Damon since before Stefan and I had danced earlier either, save for a brief glimpse of him taking a blonde girl for a spin on the floor at around the same time. Unfortunately, I'd spotted the blonde girl being chatted up by a boy I vaguely recognized from my French class, and Damon was nowhere to be seen. _

_ I had just decided to check by the punch bowl when my phone rang. (My proper phone, not the phone Damon had given me, though I kept the latter on me or within arm's reach at all times in case Klaus rang). _

_ It was the pizza vampire. Noah. It had to be. _

_ I answered it with shaking hands._

"_Hello, Elena," the pizza vampire greeted with vindictive satisfaction in his voice. "Here's what you're going to do. There's an exit door behind you. You have five seconds."_

"_I'm not Katherine, you know," I said, wondering if my earlier theory was due any credence. "I look like her, but terrorizing me does nothing but amuse her. She hates me, you know. For stealing her boyfriend. So you're really just helping her along."_

"_Five seconds," he repeated, as though I hadn't spoken. "Or your brother dies."_

_ I turned against my will to face the drinks table where my brother was ladling punch into a paper cup. Standing not six feet away was the dick I'd hit with the car. _

"_I can snap his neck so fast I bet there's not even a witness," he informed me, an undercurrent of dark relish colouring his voice. "Now start walking."_

"_Don't do this," I requested quietly, though I obediently began making my way to the door he'd described. "If you do this, you'll die, Noah."_

_ Not that I particularly gave a shit at that point, as far as I was concerned, the filthy rat bastard deserved whatever was coming to him for toying with me like he had. I hadn't forgotten the naked fear I'd felt when I'd hit him with the car and he'd gotten up like it was nothing and stalked towards me, or the terror that blindsided me when I realized he had gotten himself invited into my house, and I was done with the threatening calls to my mobile and his stupid game of cat and mouse. _

"_Keep walking," he advised me in something not quite yet a purr but made me falter nonetheless. I couldn't bear to listen to him any longer, so I ended the call, pocketed my phone, and broke into a run. _

_ I wove through the crowd in a tizzy, letting myself bump into people not in blind panic, but in hopes of raising enough commotion to draw Stefan or Damon's attention. Someone shouted after me for knocking punch all over their crisp white shirt, but I didn't stop. I ran for the exit and stumbled into the hall, making a beeline for the double doors ahead of me. They were locked, I realized with a sinking heart, rattling them as though Elena's toothpick arms could rip them off their hinges with vampire-like strength. _

_ In a split second decision, I threw myself into a run down the hallway in his direction and made an abrupt turn left into the cafeteria. I made it as far as the door before realizing that it, too, was locked. I had nowhere left to run. _

"Lena?"

_ He threw the doors open with a bang, stalking towards me even as I pressed myself against the door. He lunged for me with vampire speed; I threw myself out of the way just in time, I suppose, and he grabbed me roughly by the hair and yanked me backwards with such force that I cried out._

"I don't know, she's never been gone so long before."

_ He threw me hard into a table; I rolled across it and tumbled to the floor, grasping at my ribs in choked agony as he flipped the table and scattered paper and pencils all around me. I tried to scramble to my feet, snatching up the pencils within my reach and was suddenly slammed hard against a wall. _

"…Lena? Can you hear me?"

_ He snarled at me and sprang for my throat, his teeth elongated and terrible. I didn't think, I simply reacted, slamming one of the pencils up into his stomach. _

_ He made a horrible choking noise and I feinted going for his heart with the pencil in my right hand, which he tried to block with his hand, and instead focused all my strength into stabbing him in the neck with the pencil in my left. I drove the pencil in until the fist it was clenched in was flat against his skin, and then I hit it with my palm to push it in farther. It wouldn't kill him, I knew, but it weakened him enough that I was able to shove him to the floor and stumble away from him, desperately trying to reorient myself. _

_ I backed into a mop and snatched it up, adrenaline coursing through my system. Wood, I thought almost deliriously, how convenient. I snapped it over my knee with strength I didn't know Elena possessed and held the broken piece ready in my hand. _

_ He would lunge for me, I was sure, and I had a better chance of getting him if I waited until he was right upon me. Distance meant safety, but it also meant more room for him to deflect my attack. If I waited until he was flush up against me, sinking his fangs into my throat, I had a better chance of killing him. _

_ What I didn't account for, though, was his speed. _

_ He ripped the pencils out of his body with a roar of anger and flashed to my side, tearing the makeshift stake from my hands and throwing it to the side with a snarl. I took a step back and tried to bolt, but he grabbed hold of me, forced my neck to the side, and-_

_ I screamed, and suddenly he was torn away from me._

"Lena!"

I came to with a shuddering gasp, clutching at the hand resting on my shoulder as though it were a lifeline I could cling to amidst the storm in my mind. What was that sound, I wondered briefly, glancing around for the source of the shallow, hollow noise of discordant breathing. It was me, I realized with a start, and made careful effort to control myself.

"Good news, Damon," I said when I trusted myself to speak, when the grasping darkness that accompanied each so-called 'vision' had been banished to the farthest corner of my soul, "the plan? It works. Not sure how it ends, but he definitely took the bait."

_Lena_.

I let go of Stefan's arm abruptly, glancing between him and his brother wondering why they weren't reacting to the random voice calling my name. It struck me after a moment that they hadn't heard it at all, that it must have been some bizarre vision thing.

"Maybe this isn't the best idea," Stefan said, considering my no doubt pale face with a look of wariness. "You look like you're about to fall over, Lena."

"She said the plan worked," Damon countered with a shrug. "It'll be fine."

Stefan looked doubtful, and though my body was already aching in anticipation of the beating apparently to come, I was determined.

"It's a game to him, Steffy." I tried to explain, not quite sure how I wanted to say what I wanted to say. "He…he won't stop. He'd kill Jeremy to punish me for not playing along and now he's been invited into my house and that puts Jenna at risk too. And…"

The memory of getting threatened, terrorized, and thrown around stirred my anger.

"And I want that bastard staked," I admitted in something of a snarl. "He deserves every pencil I stick him with and that stupid mop handle besides."

"I'm afraid to ask," Stefan commented dryly, though there was tenseness to his frame that bespoke the disquiet my words had sparked in him.

"He gets me alone," I answered shortly. "And I fight back."

"Great!" Damon called from where he stood, clapping his hands together, a not entirely false expression of blinding enthusiasm plastered on his face. "Perfect. Let's go."

Stefan looked as though he wanted to protest, but I diverted him by asking if he would teach me how to dance like they did in the fifties.

"No," He refused blankly, almost startling me in his conviction. "Not happening."

All of even my most underhanded efforts at wheedling a promise from him failed during the walk to the car and the ride to the dance, even the reminder that I was going to be tossed about like a rag doll and terrorized because he left me. It was a low blow, I know, but it was more out of curiosity than actual want to dance by that point. He was very adamant for reasons I didn't understand, and his will in resisting me was surprising.

I have always been persuasive, which I suppose is just a rather nice way of saying habitually spoiled by everyone around me, but I digress.

"See," I complained, pouting at him as the three of us made our way from the car to the school, "your vehemence in refusing me is the real issue here. If you'd said something like, 'I don't fancy it,' I would have shrugged it off. But there has to be a story here, it's so unlike you to just shut me down like that. Pretty please, Stefan? With a cherry on top?"

"Not even with a cherry on top," Stefan intoned, voice made rich with sarcasm. It put a smile on my face to see him departing from his broody gravitas.

"I know you crazy kids could stand there making eyes at each other all night," Damon interrupted loudly, leaning casually against the gym door, "but we've got a rogue vampire to stake and currently no bait to lure him in."

I scoffed but followed him into the bright lights and sounds of the fabled Decades Dance with an arch, indignant, "Just friends, Damon."

_Lena. _

I had no sooner stepped into the crowd that I heard it, and violently stiffened, glancing around myself in a cold fright. The music was deafeningly loud, and the chatter of the crowd made a normal speaking voice indiscernible. And yet, I'd heard my name as though it had been spoken in a whisper just behind me.

"See our boy around here anywhere?" Damon asked idly, eyes searching for the man only I would recognize. I opened my mouth to answer and then-

"_He can't die, Hal. He can't. I wouldn't bear it if he…" I broke off with a sob, slamming my palm down on the vanity so hard it ached, and that ache didn't even begin to compare to the despair that gripped my soul. "How can I let him die after this? Please, Hal. For me."_

_ I turned pleadingly, crossing the distance between the dark-haired man listening attentively and I in four, quick steps. I took his hand in both of mine, gripping it tightly. _

"_You know me, Hal. I wouldn't dare to risk it if I didn't think he'd swear. Please." I begged, biting at my lip. "I love him. I should die, Hal. I should die if that boy does when I could have saved him."_

"_You love Edward just as much," he reminded me gently, curling a strand of my bright copper hair on his finger. "And yet for him you would not take the risk, my lady."_

_ I released his hand, stepping away from him so that the lock of hair he had been toying with fell limply back to my shoulder. _

"_I love Edward," I confirmed, "and dearly too, but he is not his brother, Hal. How many times have I loved and let those loved ones go towards the doom I knew lay ahead of them? I ask you this because I love him as I loved you and did I not risk everything to snatch you from the jaws of death? Please, Hal. He'll swear, I know he will. And he'd die before he broke his word. If he agrees…Don't deny me this."_

_ Hal gazed impassively down at my face for a moment, his features striking and familiar in the flickering candlelight. _

"_What of Anthony, then?" He asked, and the words cut me to the quick. "You love Anthony just as much and yet you do not plead for his life."_

_ I took a step back, anguish written all over my features. _

"_I shouldn't be pleading for _any_ of them, Hal." I argued quietly. "But how can I help it? Yes, I love Anthony just as much but my God, Hal, the look on his face when he spoke to me tonight! How can I lose him now? How can I?"_

_ It was a long, immeasurable moment that he spent staring at me, standing inhumanly still as he considered me. Long, immeasurable, torturous. If he didn't speak, I thought in abject misery, I would surely perish. _

"_Dear Kate," he said at last, lifting my hand in his and pressing a kiss to it. "You know I would no sooner deny you than I could forget you. If he swears, I will turn him. I only fear for you, that he might refuse for his brother's sake, out of that loyalty you hold in such high esteem, or perhaps that even his life will not be enough to purchase you from anguish when all the others you have come to love so dearly are not spared their fates."_

I blinked and then I was in Stefan's arms, my forehead resting on his shoulder in an almost intimate manner as we swayed from side to side.

"Stefan," I blurted awkwardly, still reeling, feeling terribly, dizzyingly out of place. "You wouldn't believe what I just saw. It was me. Right, _proper_ me, only dressed like I'd stumbled out of _Hamlet_. And that man was there, the vampire from the trip to Georgia that called himself Hal. He called me-"

I abruptly lowered my voice, tensing warily.

"He called me Kate," I nearly whispered, counting on his proximity and his vampire senses to allow him to hear me. "He called me _Kate_, Stef, like…"

I trailed off with a shiver, thinking to the note he had left me, the flower twined with the ring I hadn't dared so much as think of since I'd thrown it into my dresser.

"Stefan, I don't know what the hell is happening, but that man _knows_ me. He might even know how I got here," I breathed, the realization striking me suddenly. "Oh God, Stef, he might…he might have all the answers."

_ He might be able to send me home_, went unspoken, but I thought it and the way Stefan went rigid made me suspect he did too.

"Do you," he started, but let the question die without ever voicing the end of it. "We'll figure all of this out, Lena, I promise. We'll find this guy and get answers for you, alright? But right now, you need to focus. You wanted to do this, Lena. You wanted to get this guy tonight, and if you still want that, you need to focus. Can you do that?"

I nodded sharply, bobbing my head up and down as I took deep, steadying breaths.

"Yes," I affirmed, trying to centre myself, pushing all but the most stubborn of thoughts to the back burner, so to speak. "Yes, I can do that. I can do this."

It wasn't going to be difficult, I reasoned. All I had to do was dance, maybe pester Stefan a bit longer to see if he'd really be so churlish as to deny me something as simple as a dance, and generally just look as though I had no idea the pizza vampire was going to do his best to kill me in the near future. All I really had to do was pass the time until the inevitable occurred. Of course, there lay a dangerous trap, I realized.

I was relying too heavily on visions I knew nothing about, and that was dangerous. How was I to know whether they were true or not, especially with only the example of the night Bonnie was supposed to have been attacked by Damon as proof.

"Elena!" Caroline shouted, drawing me back from my thoughts. "There you are!"

Let it never be said that in the presence of Caroline Forbes at a party it was possible to be morose. As soon as the exquisitely dressed future Miss Mystic Falls bounded over, Bonnie in tow, the party began, so to speak, and it was impossible to dwell on thoughts of anything past the music and dancing with the wild abandon of a teenager.

It set me almost at ease, really, such a high-spirited distraction, but though Bonnie had nothing personal against Damon, Caroline still sort of did (I wasn't sure what she remembered, precisely, since she obviously wasn't clued in on the fact that he was a vampire), and the merriment was cut short after he meandered over and began harassing her, more or less. Bonnie, in a show of solidarity, left with her when Caroline decided to leave, disappointed by the lack of Matt and surplus of Salvatore.

Then it was just me and Elena's boys, so to speak, and Stefan _still_ wouldn't show me any authentic fifties dance. It wasn't as if I didn't have a good idea of what I wanted to see, the arts had ever been my haven in my previous life and dancing was within that realm. I'd taken lessons for years, but Stefan would know all sorts of moves I didn't.

"After?" I persisted, meaning once the pizza vampire was taken care of. "It doesn't even have to be here tonight, if you insist on being such a spoilsport, but you surely could be persuaded to teach me some another day?"

It was a new tactic and seemed to intrigue him a little.

"You really want to learn, don't you?" He wondered thoughtfully, leaning back contemplatively where he stood.

A secret sort of smile touched my face.

"Of course I do. And I bet I'd pick it up in a snap! I am an _excellent_ dancer," I confided in him, all confidence and pleasure. "I've always loved music; long have I mourned the fact that I have no talent for making it, it's true, but by _God_ can I dance."

A slight grin and a raised eyebrow was his response.

"Is that so?" He asked, clearly fighting back a grin. "Because I can't say I've seen all that much from you so far, and we've danced before."

I scoffed.

"There's dancing and there's _dancing_," I corrected him archly. "What we did was casual swaying to the music at a fancy party dancing. If you want to see me dance properly, you'd better step it up. Man's supposed to lead, after all."

He seemed to be at war with himself for a moment before squaring his shoulders.

"Just remember," he told me so gravely it actually surprised me. "You asked for this."

In the second it took for me to process what he was really saying, he'd pulled me towards him and swept me out onto the floor. What followed was the most fun I'd ever had in my life; Stefan spun me round the floor and lifted and dipped me until I was nearly dizzy with it, and I resolved then and there that I would pester him until he agreed to dance with me again because he was the best partner I'd ever danced with and I couldn't imagine not dancing with him again.

"Where have you been hiding all this talent?" I asked breathlessly when he pulled me up against him, the barest hint of a cocky smirk on his face. "And more importantly, _why_?"

He elected not to answer my question, instead twirling me about in a manner that was almost leisurely to the much slower music that had begun to play now to give the dancers a bit of a break. We weren't slow-dancing as much as we were walking a lap after sprinting a mile, which made me feel comfortable enough to place my arms around his neck as his slipped down to my waist, leaving a respectable distance between us, as we swayed idly to the beat. It gave me the chance to catch my breath, that's for certain.

"You surprised me," he admitted after a minute of that. "When you said you could dance, I thought you meant…well, I didn't think you'd been classically trained. How long did you take lessons for?"

"How'd you guess?" I demanded, laughing. "Started ballroom dancing when I was eleven, kept it up 'til I was twenty-one, and took ballet from eight to fourteen."

Surprise flickered across his features.

"Ballet?" He questioned, making me scowl.

"Yes, ballet." I returned, daring him to comment further. Not because I had something against ballet; au contraire, I loved it. It was just that by the time I was fourteen, (I'd been a bit of a late bloomer), I no longer had the svelte frame for it. I practiced on my own after that, but it had been more for the sake of keeping myself nimble and lithe than it was because I wished to be able to complete twenty fouettés en pointe at a nightclub.

Not that Elena's body was in any condition to complete a single fouetté en pointe, but I digress. I hadn't been able to do more than, like, _two_ before I came, and that was _exhausting_. On that note, though, I began to consider training Elena up for it; she was slim as anything, and not as busty as I was by half. Perhaps ballet might be in the books for my future, if I were to be staying.

"You're very light on your feet," Stefan told me, drawing me from my thoughts. "You follow cues like you've been trained to do it, you don't look at your feet while you move and you participate without trying to lead. It's rare nowadays."

I hummed thoughtfully, about to answer, when I caught sight of something over Stefan's shoulder. A man in a black hooded jumper, sticking out like a sore thumb across the room for us. It was him, I thought, though doubt gnawed in my stomach.

"Stefan," I prompted, staring intently over his shoulder, no longer moving. He followed my gaze and his expression grew grim.

"Find Damon," he ordered, and slipped into the crowd in pursuit of him.

He had no sooner gone that I realized I had made a mistake; this was the start of my vision, I thought. I should have kept Stefan with me until we found Damon. I stood there uncertainly, fear creeping into me as I debated what to do.

The only thing I could really think of was the myth of Oedipus and the concept of self-fulfilling prophecy. I could look for Damon all I wanted, but I wouldn't find him. I could feel it in my bones; no matter what I did, I would end up within view of the punch table, within view of my brother. So, that's precisely where I went.

I hadn't wandered more than two minutes, my thoughts echoing my vision exactly, as far as I remembered it, when my phone rang.

I answered it with shaking hands.

"Lena? Jesus Christ, are you alright?" Stefan asked, his hands gripping my shoulders tightly.

I blinked, suddenly coming back to myself.

"Stef?" I asked, my voice going a bit shrill within the space of that single syllable. "When did you get here? He…he called me, just like in my vision, and then…"

Stefan's face was growing more and more serious and worried as I kept talking, so I shut my mouth, glancing anxiously around the…the cafeteria. I was in the cafeteria. Only I hadn't been, I'd been standing in the gym, near the punch table. I'd been-

"Gotta say, _Lena,"_ Damon acknowledged with a low whistle as he strode over to where we were standing as though he hadn't heard a word that had been spoken, "you did a pretty decent number on this tool. Love the pencil in the throat. Real classy."

_ He made a horrible choking noise and I feinted going for his heart with the pencil in my right hand, which he tried to block with his hand, and instead focused all my strength into stabbing him in the neck with the pencil in my left. _

"Stefan, I don't-" I began, a violent shudder going through my body. "I didn't-"

He exchanged an unreadable glance with Damon over my shoulder.

"Come on, Lena," he said after a moment, wrapping his arms around my shoulders as though he were trying to keep me from falling. He ran his fingers through my hair so tenderly it rather made me want to cry. "Let's get you home."

It wasn't until we were alone in my room that I did.

_To be continued in A Minor Adjustment._


	21. A MINOR ADJUSTMENT

_A Minor Adjustment_

In the aftermath of my disastrous first dance, three things changed. Firstly, I swore to myself that I would never go to any dance or formal party again without packing anti-vampire 'heat.' Secondly, I decided to get off my indecisive arse and actually _do_ something about the whole Katherine/tomb affair. If I was resolved to smooth out the path of the plot, then I would do it _properly_, without fumbling around like I'd had twelve drinks too many and was trying to get up stairs in the dark.

Thirdly, and most importantly, I would do what I should have been doing from the very beginning: doing my utmost to find out how the hell I had come to be in this universe and how, if ever, I was to get back. And a staggering part of that would involve figuring out my visions and how to either control them or make them stop altogether.

The priority at the moment, though, was dealing with the Katherine/tomb affair. I wouldn't be crossing Damon, not when he and I made such a formidable team and he was so sure to be vengeful if I didn't hold up to my end of the bargain. First, the tomb would be opened. In that, I was decided. What would happen after that, I did not know, but I would make good of my promise to Damon.

And the first step of achieving that was contacting Anna.

"I didn't know you knew her," Jeremy commented tensely as we waited for the doorbell to ring. "Lena, what's going on?"

The look on his face, which was justly confused, convinced me then and there that I would have to tell him the truth. I had asked him to please call Anna and tell her that he had recovered the journal from Alaric for her, and that she should come over in about an hour to pick it up. She'd agreed, and that hour had gone very quickly in preparation.

Damon had retrieved the grimoire the day after I told him about it, and it was now in his possession. He'd hidden it, I wasn't sure where, but I didn't think it mattered, considering that soon enough he'd be giving it to me so that I could give it to the witches once I'd spoken to them. I had leverage over Anna should our talk go badly.

And it helped that Damon had, in the interest of protecting his investment so to speak, decided to supervise my meeting with Anna in case there was a need for vampire muscle to rescue me when I stuck my foot in it. Charming man, as always.

I desperately hoped he wasn't nosing about my room while he hid there. He seemed like the sort to go through my drawers and upset the alphabetical order of the ever growing number of books on my shelf just because he was bored.

"Jeremy, as soon as she gets here, I need you to leave. Go to Bonnie and tell her that I'm dealing with an issue related to what Emily wanted and stay with her until I call you, alright? Keep her safe. When you get back, I'll tell you everything. Deal?"

My brother fixed me with a long, measured look before holding his hands up in the air in a gesture of surrender.

"As soon as I get back, Elena." He ordered, seeming none too happy but it was assent and that was all I really cared about.

I nodded.

"As soon as you get back," I repeated, the words spoken in solemn promise.

He didn't look all that appeased by my words, but he accepted them and settled back into the sofa, every now and then glancing at me as though he could piece the truth together for himself just by looking at my face.

It was unnerving, to say the least, but I was lucky enough to only have to suffer his suspicious glances for another eleven and a half minutes before the doorbell rang.

Jeremy stared at me for a measured moment before stiffly getting up to answer it.

"Hey! I got your message," Anna chimed in greeting, her face alight with cheer. "It was really nice of you to get the journal back just because I asked for it."

"Sure," Jeremy muttered distractedly, clearly thinking of what I had told him before hand. "Come on in, my sister's in the living room thumbing through it right now."

I could see even from where I sat the way her expression tightened at the mention of me and resisted the urge to cringe. If people didn't hate Elena just because she looked like Katherine, they hated her doubly so because she looked like Katherine and, in this case, was a Gilbert. It made me miss my own face even more and like Katherine even less.

Anna quickly smoothed her face into a mask of good humour and flounced into the living room to join me like a kind of awkward teenager.

"Hey," she said with a little wave. "You must be Elena, Jeremy's sister."

I snorted at the ridiculousness of the situation; two people who were older than they looked pretending to be school kids and exchanging pleasantries like them for the purpose of furthering their respective supernatural agendas. Anna didn't seem to appreciate my disdain, her eyes sharpening on mine in a way that was most definitely predatory.

I waited for to hear the door shut behind Jeremy before answering. As soon as it did, I flopped back onto the couch and gestured for Anna to take a seat.

"Have a seat, Annabelle," I instructed her with a sigh, deliberately using the name I'd just heard her mother refer to her by in a brief flashback to some point in the show in my memory. "We're probably going to be here for a while as I explain what you need to do to get your mother back. Oh, and before we start, forget the Gilbert Journal, we already have the grimoire so it's of no use to you."

Her face twisted into a snarl and she lunged at me.

"You could have phrased that better," Damon informed me as he slammed her back into a wall by the throat; he'd no sooner said it than her hand shot out and mimicked his hold. They stood there choking each other until I rolled my eyes, stood up, and in a few, quick strides was there with them, trying to pry them apart.

"You're probably right," I admitted briefly as they caught their breath. "I know you hate me because I look like Katherine and because…"

My screwed up a little as the memories of Katherine pinching Pearl's cheeks so that she would look pretty for whatever his name was Gilbert and then the same Gilbert holding the watch and staring at the woman in dawning horror as he told the other men with him he'd found another one flitted through my mind.

"…Because your mom had a thing for my ancestor? Oh, okay, that's interesting. I guess history really does repeat itself. Well, except that Jeremy would never shoot you in the back because he's not a prejudiced asshole," I mused, and shrugged. "Anyway, I know you hate me and all that, but put it aside for a second because…oh, I see what you meant. I'm not trying to hold your mother over your head, sorry if it sounded that way. I only meant that you fumbling around in the dark the way you've been doing is detrimental to our shared purpose of opening the tomb to free Pearl, kill all the other vampires, and prove to Damon that Katherine isn't there."

"I don't care about the other vampires," Damon interjected, as though it was very important to him that we knew that. "I'm only in it to let Katherine out."

I rolled my eyes at his determination to appear to be the selfish big bad that would get rid of anyone in his way. Not that that wasn't true, but he didn't need to advertise it so much. Anna was glancing between us as though calculating the odds that we were telling the truth, wariness written over her features.

"Look," I started, putting all of my focus into lying through my teeth the way I'd been doing since I'd arrived in this world, more or less, "if you don't listen to me, one of three things will happen: one, you'll die and your mom will rot in there forever because you took away our only chance of opening it. Two, your mom will die within like, ten minutes of getting out of the tomb and you will watch and then have to live with yourself knowing it was literally all your fault. Three, you and your mom are blissfully reunited and then are killed along with all the other vampires in tomb at the exact same time by a single hunter."

Scepticism was written all over her face, but it wasn't the I-don't-believe-a-word-you're-saying type of scepticism as much as it was the how-could-you-possibly-know-that sort, which boded well, I thought.

I took the opportunity to launch into an explanation of my visions, gave her the extended version of the two bullshit futures I'd come up with and a moderately embellished version of the truth as I remembered it from the show.

I told her all about my plan for opening the tomb, told her that I had witches to open it, that Damon had already retrieved the grimoire and that all we had been waiting for was securing her and, through her, her mother's cooperation in killing off the other vampires so that, ideally, Elena's biological father wouldn't come and stir up all the Gilbert device trouble and possibly ruin my plan for fixing the Klaus problem. Of course, I didn't mention the Klaus problem to them because it wasn't anybody's business but mine, Klaus, and I suppose by extension Elijah's, but I digress.

I remembered her saying in the show that she preferred to work alone but that since she was minus the book and Damon was minus a witch…

It took a while for her to understand, so at last I decided to play the card of having a secret self-serving motive to get her to believe me.

"I need you and your mom to live because if you do, the pair of you and I will be very good friends and you will help me with something very important that I've been cooking up. We'll be such good friends, in fact," I lied perhaps a little hopefully, because I was trying to guide her expectation of the future so that my lie would become truth, one day, "that I'll sell my blood to the vampire Katerina has spent her entire existence running from to save your life. If it helps you trust me, then believe I'm doing this out of the selfish desire to secure your help with something big."

There would be a lot to hash out, I thought as she took that in, but I was sure she would agree. Damon's expression of curious suspicion at the mention of my 'something big,' probably guessing correctly that it was related to the favour I had asked of him, which he had been so kind as to do even before I proved my honesty to him by opening the tomb.

When she spoke at last, it sent a thrill of giddy satisfaction coursing through me.

"When are you going to open it?" She asked, and a secretive smile crossed over my face.

"Day after tomorrow," I answered cheerfully. "One of my witches is coming from Georgia to help out and Bonnie and I are hanging out tomorrow and then going to her grandmother's house for dinner, where I shall secure their assistance. That should give you more than adequate time to secure a child molester or two to get your mom back to her lovely self."

It was only the brief flicker of discomfort in her expression that alerted me to the fact that something was wrong. I searched my memory of the plot for some indication of what it could be, but outside of the brief but bizarrely clear flashes of recollection I'd been having, I didn't remember much about the first season beyond Elena and Stefan meet, date, Damon is the bad guy mostly, they open the tomb, Katherine's not in it, and then John rolls into town and decides to kill all the vampires.

Not very exact, I know, and really, when I thought about it, my knowledge of season two wasn't all that much better. In fact, the only part I knew well was Masquerade and the bits without Elijah were marginally less interesting than the rest, so…

"Bonnie," I said in sudden epiphany. I vaguely remembered the attempted motel room escape and put two and two together. "You've got her locked up in your hidey-hole, don't you? Damn it all, just…Tell me where it is and I'll go get her. If she hasn't seen you yet, she can't, so stay here and resign yourself to the fact that you're probably not going to see whatever minion you used to get her again."

I put two and two together and got four, and did one better and realized as Anna reluctantly directed me to her lair that the guy Bonnie had been telling me about, had told me she had a date with, must have been Anna's…progeny, for lack of a better word. Bonnie had been played and the thought of someone daring to treat someone who was mine with such disrespect filled me with a rage that almost surprised me. I wanted Anna to get used to the idea of her boy toy being gone because I was going to do my utmost to kill him.

"I trust you not to hurt my family or friends any more than you already have," I told her frigidly as I stood up, my gaze sharp and cold in a way that must have seemed wrong on Elena's face, "while I am out correcting this problem. If my Aunt Jenna comes back, go hide in my room. Other than that, make yourself at home."

And with that, I made for the door.

"Whoa, where do you think _you're_ going?" Damon inquired snidely from suddenly in front of me, arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the exit.

"To stake the motherless prick that toyed with my friend's feelings," I snarled, my glare venomous. "Now move, Damon."

If it were any other time, I might have laughed at the taken aback look on his face, but there was something fierce and unyielding burning in my blood. Bonnie was _mine_, that instinct howled. Such disrespect to her person I would not tolerate.

"You can't go after witchy on your own, Lena," Damon countered, apparently trying to be reasonable in hopes of getting me to drop it.

I wasn't in the mood for reason.

"I told you once that the only virtue I can be accused of possessing is loyalty, Damon." I started, past the point of caring whether Anna could hear me or not. "Once a person is mine, they are mine forever and wrongs against them are wrongs against me. Bonnie is mine and she has been wronged and the man who has wronged her will pay for it."

The sound of glass breaking from the kitchen should have incited some sort of response from the two of us, but I would not move and he would not remove himself from my path, so we stayed where we were facing each other off in the hallway.

"You told me once that I was your friend," Damon reminded me, his blue, blue eyes intense on mine. "Does that mean I'm 'yours' too?"

He'd gone on the offensive, I thought as I looked up at him. He'd felt confident enough in his ability to unnerve me to close the distance between us, leaving the door to stand nearly flush up against me.

I studied him for a long moment, and let a coy smile grace my lips.

"Not yet," I said, and dared to put a hand up to his cheek. "You're my friend, Damon, because I trust you. But you're not _mine_ because you don't trust me."

I slipped by him like the whisper of a breeze and unlocked the door. He made no move whatsoever to stop me, which I appreciated though I didn't understand the motive behind the allowance. I murmured a low, almost husky thank you was I opened the door and made to step out of it.

"Is Stefan yours?" He asked suddenly, stopping me short on the threshold.

There was a loaded question, I thought almost dizzily. I knew instinctively whether I answered in the positive or in the negative, I was damning myself to the circle of hell I mentally reserved for those that toy with others. I had to answer truthfully, and to be honest, I wasn't entirely sure that Stefan trusted me as utterly and completely as I trusted him, as I knew Bonnie trusted me. And I wouldn't lie. Not about something as grave as this.

"Ask him," I directed instead of saying yes or no. "Not if he's mine or not, that would be stupid. No, ask him if he trusts me and you'll have your answer."

He let me go without another word.

I spent the entire drive to the motel, (after arming myself with one of the better stakes I'd whittled in my free time to keep in the car after the accident), formulating a plan. I had daylight on my side, as Anna had briefly mentioned while giving me directions that the man I was planning to kill didn't have a daylight ring, but that wasn't enough. No, the most potent weapon in my arsenal was compulsion.

If I made him believe that Anna had compelled me, I was more or less assured that his guard would be down. The key to the motel room was in my pocket; I would let myself in and all I would have to do from that point on was ensure that I behaved like a mindless puppet until the opportunity to strike arose.

_ Now_, I thought dryly as I parked the car outside the inconspicuous, bland-looking establishment, _would be the perfect time for a vision detailing the path to success_. Unfortunately, no such vision was forthcoming.

Oh well, I decided grimly. I'd known I was relying on them too much anyway.

I had no sooner opened the door than I was slammed into the wall by the throat, much like Anna had been when she tried to grab me. A snarling vampire I recognized as the guy from the Grill Bonnie had a thing for demanded to know how I got in.

I kept my expression as limpid and lifeless as possible, ignoring the fingers digging into my tender skin, (it would bruise, no doubt), and instead held up the room key.

"Anna said to give you back the key when I'd arrived," I mumbled blankly, focusing on a spot on the wall over his shoulder in an unseeing stare, "and then to sit down quietly and do what you tell me to until she gets back."

A horrified, choked sob from somewhere to our right informed me that Bonnie was up and about, but I didn't dare look in her direction for fear of giving myself away.

"Man, that eye thing is great," he muttered to himself, loosening his grip. "Alright, change of plans. So that your little friend here can see how serious we are about killing you if she doesn't help us, I want you to stand still while I bite you."

Though it sent a shudder of revulsion down my spine, I gazed at him almost dreamily and nodded, chirping a drowsy but cheery, "okay!"

Bonnie shouted something indistinct but the fear coursing through my veins as I allowed him to tilt my head the other way drowned it out. I heard the vampire chuckle and say something about being too desperate in her direction, fuelling rage along side terror, and then felt his fangs tear through my skin to get at my blood.

It burned something terrible, a sharp, shooting pain each time he sucked on the wound to draw more blood from it that abated only when he stopped to swallow. I allowed myself to slowly go limp to the point that he was practically holding me up as he drank, letting my arms swing with the movement until I was sure he wouldn't notice me going for the stake. He growled into my throat in pleasure as my hand found wood.

No sooner had he begun to draw away that he made a choked exclamation of agony that was audible even over the sound of Bonnie crying and gone limp.

I swayed a little where I stood, staring down at the greying body of the monster I had murdered and observed almost clinically as I stared at the stake sticking out of his chest that adrenaline could do incredible things.

"Are you alright, Bonnie?" I asked quietly, only then searching her out in the dim light of the room. I had just turned when she barrelled into me, sobbing.

"Oh God, Lena, I thought," she began, and cut herself off as she cried harder.

I shushed her gently, wrapping my arms around her quivering form and feeling a little guilty for letting him bite me in front of her. It was necessary, though. It was the only way he wouldn't have time to react when I staked him.

I had learned that lesson from the pizza vampire as well.

"It's alright, I wasn't really compelled. I just needed him to think that so I could kill him," I tried to reassure her, and realized that perhaps my initial plan of dropping her off at her grandmother's to get some rest was probably not going to work out.

Alright, new plan.

"Bonnie, I need you to pull yourself together, okay?" I requested gently. "We need to get out of here and I need you to make some phone calls while I drive us to Grams' house. Can you do that for me?"

Bless her, I thought fondly as she nodded shakily and extricated herself from my grip to stand firmly on her own two feet. Bonnie was strong. Maybe she didn't know it yet, but she was _strong_.

I had her call Damon first, and inform him that all had gone well, there was a body to be rid of, and that we would be regrouping at the boarding house later that evening and that Anna should be invited. He demanded to speak to me, and in the very brief snippet of conversation that followed I told him I was fine and that the reason for the change of plans was that I was going to talk to the Bonnie and her grandmother today instead of as previously arranged, and that was that.

Next on my list of people to phone was Stefan, who Bonnie texted rather than called at my request to inform him that we were meeting at the boarding house later on and that he was in charge of bringing Jeremy and my aunt Jenna. There was no reply, so I assumed he was still talking to Alaric as I had asked him to last night, but I knew he would get the text eventually and so relaxed.

Lastly, I had Bonnie call her grandmother to let her know that she was alright and that we would arrive in a few minutes and if she wouldn't mind terribly arranging something sweet to eat because I had donated blood and wasn't feeling all that well.

Bonnie stuttered as she said the last part, but I didn't want her falling to pieces again and so had decided to have her euphemize the situation, knowing her grandmother would understand. There would be time for crying and horror later when she was safe inside Grams' house; for now, I needed to focus on the road and not on her, because neither of us were in condition to drive due to blood loss and shock respectively and I didn't want to risk an accident. To die in a car crash after coming this far would have been disgraceful.

We got to Bonnie's grandmother's house just fine in the end, although I stumbled a little getting off the car from the sudden onset of dizziness. Grams greeted us at the door with a piercing, worried stare and then we were swept into the warm embrace of home.

It was my first time meeting Grams, actually, but I felt so comfortable around her it wasn't funny. Maybe it was the blood loss talking, but if it was, I could have gone about in a similar state always.

Biscuits and a cup of tea with two spoonfuls of sugar did wonders for my aching head, but eventually the brief reprieve from the supernatural crap was over, and the companionable silence was broken with two, simple words.

"What happened?"

It was a long, measured look Grams said it with, and it was that look coupled with those words that made Bonnie glance nervously at my neck and burst into tears and sent me reeling into another vision.

"_Oh my God, Harper," I stuttered, nearly numb with shock. "Are you alright?" _

_ It was a stupid question, I berated myself, but I didn't know what else to ask. He'd been skewered in my place; what do you say to someone who used themselves as a meat shield to save you? Certainly not, 'you good, bro?'_

"_Just fine Miss Shay," he reassured me with an agreeable nod, and then looked away. "But I think it's time for you to go now."_

_ I swallowed nervously at the implication behind his gentle dismissal. _

"_I…I will. Thanks, Harper." I said, sincere even though I was slowly backing away from him. Of course he was hungry, I thought dizzily. He'd been run through by what was left of the mangled car door, and he'd stayed that way until I'd been able to drag him off it. _

"_Good night, Miss Shay."_

I jumped and knocked my knee painfully hard against the table.

"Lena!" Bonnie cried, and I cringed.

"Give her some space, baby," Grams ordered, watching me with knowing eyes. "When she's caught her breath, she'll tell us what she saw."

How the hell she knew I'd seen anything, I had no idea, I still had the scene with the mystery vampire named Harper on a loop in my head. Who the hell was Harper? And why was he calling me Shay? Only one person in my life had ever called me Shay, and, well, there were extenuating circumstances that called for it.

I pushed such musings aside for a moment, though, in favour of using what was practically an invitation to open up the topic of them opening the tomb for me and the reasoning behind why I was asking.

"You're going to die," I informed her calmly, ignoring the gasp of horror my words earned from poor Bonnie, who honestly was having a shite day.

Grams expression was untroubled; she just waited for me to finish, somehow knowing that I wasn't done.

"You're going to die," I repeated, and then straightened up in my seat. "Or at least, you _were_ going to die. Now, I'm hoping this works, because it would make explaining a lot easier…" I continued, and offered her my hand.

"The last time I saved a witch's life, she shook my hand and saw what I saw of her death." I informed them, for once absolutely one hundred percent truthful. It was a nice feeling. "I don't know if it'll work that way again, but even if you don't see that, you might see something, and hopefully it will be what you need to see to believe me."

It's not often a person instantly wins my admiration or respect, but Bonnie's grandmother gained both simultaneously in a single gesture.

She smiled, serene and almost amused, and said:

"Oh, honey, you don't need to convince me that your visions are real." She chuckled a little as I stared at her, frozen. What she meant by that, I didn't know, but she wasn't done. "Now, I'll take your hand, Elena, and then you're going to tell me what it is you need from me and Bonnie, and after that we'll have a little talk about what you are."

I'd expected Bonnie would have told her about me, of course, because Bonnie and her grandmother were so close. But the knowing tone of her voice was beyond what the knowledge Bonnie possessed, even the knowledge I possessed, could grant her.

She knew something about me, more about me than I did and though it terrified me, it thrilled me, too. She could be my key to getting home.

"Okay," I agreed, sounding like a little child again in tremulous anticipation.

She smiled again, reassuringly this time, and took my hand in hers.

_To be continued in Taskmaster._


	22. TASKMASTER

_Taskmaster_

I am amazing. Alright, alright, I know that sounds terribly conceited and intolerably inconsiderate to all the wonderful people that helped me achieve everything on my to-do list, but if I hadn't been there, Steffy would have gotten tortured and things would have just generally been all messy and dramatic and Bonnie's grandmother would have died. I deserved a moment to pat myself on the back, damn it all. In the space of three days, I had not only avoided the above from happening, I had simultaneously cut out all the drama preceding the coming of Uncle John (as far as I remembered), and the vision that led me to my collaboration with Damon at last came to pass.

Yes, yes, would you believe that within the space of three days, not only was the tomb opened and all the vampires inside eliminated save for Pearl and Harper (I'll get to that, I promise), but I told Jeremy and Jenna about the existence of vampires, managed to divert Alaric from his course of getting revenge on Damon, _got in contact with Klaus_, saved Bonnie's grandmother, and with the latter's help finally made some headway in figuring out how the hell I'd gotten here and if there was any chance of going home.

I was on _fire_, damn it, and I'd more than earned the time to celebrate, as each of the brilliant, wonderful people involved in my scheming did.

My three days of incredible efficiency began the day I talked to Anna and staked a vampire like I was Jeremy when he was one of the Five (well, not really, but allow me my happy exaggeration), and talked to Bonnie and her grandmother.

When Grams took hold of my hand, she certainly saw something, though I wasn't privy to it like I had been with Bree. It did occur to me that perhaps I ought to try it again after the tomb had been opened to see if it only worked _after_ the future had been changed, but since we hadn't got that far yet, I pushed the thought to the side.

"She," Grams had murmured, and abruptly stopped as her eyes fluttered open and she gazed at me speculatively. The word was familiar and I realized with a start that it was what Bree had said when she first touched me.

When Bree first said it, I thought it might have been a stranger related to my appearance in this world. When Grams said it, I reasoned it was probably just my true self she was seeing, the me that didn't wore my face and not Elena's.

It was surprising, to say the least, to discover what it really meant.

"A _síth_?" I repeated, nothing less than shocked. "But that's impossible; they don't exist in this world, and they certainly don't exist in the world of my memories."

I knew all about the síth, of course. My da had been a brilliant story teller; I'd been raised on faeries and folk tales about them. But _faeries_? In _The Vampire Diaries_? I couldn't say it aloud, of course, but they'd gotten the wrong vampire series, because there were no faeries here.

"Yes," she answered firmly, clearly having noted the scepticism in my voice. "I sensed…a sort of wildness in you, and the shadow of a great black dog at your back. Maybe you're not of this world, Lena, but you wouldn't be the first to come to it."

I swear to God, my heart nearly stuttered to a stop with those words. And even though I was there, ready to go into cardiac arrest, Grams went on, cool as a cucumber.

"There is something trying to reach you," she continued gravely. "It will not stop trying to do so until it has succeeded, so you have to open your mind to it."

I wasn't sure at that point whether I was more afraid of a _great black dog_ or the fact that she was so openly calling me out for not being Elena. Of course, when I thought about it, I hadn't actually done anything wrong, but what were the odds of anybody even less one of Elena's friends and loved ones being a-okay with me taking over her body regardless of how non-participant I'd been in the process.

I suppose the dog won, though, because I whispered a name for it from the stories my da told me and felt a chill so cold, so terrible crawl down my spine that I resolved then and there I would not say it again.

"A…hellhound, if you like," I expanded, remembering with sudden, horrifying clarity the hour before I'd become Elena. "In the stories I know, to hear it howl three times before reaching shelter means certain death."

I'd heard howling. Of course, I wasn't so superstitious to have believed it was an omen of death, but I'd woken up in a television show about vampires and witches and werewolves. I was willing to believe a lot I would have previously called bullshit. But…had I _died_ in real life? Was that how I'd come to be here? As some sort of bizarre afterlife?

"Don't dwell on it, child, until the spirit haunting you has reached you." Grams advised with a nod. "Now tell me, what is it you need two Bennett witches for?"

I told her, and you know what, that woman listened with focused calm and agreed. Just like that. No, 'I hope you know what you're doing, Lena,' or 'Fine, but if this goes wrong all those deaths will be on you.' Nothing. She just…agreed, like she'd known what was going to go down from the moment I walked through the door.

It was absolutely terrifying to consider that she might.

I ended up not staying long after arrangements were made; Bonnie hugged me hard before I left, muttering a quiet, determined _thank you_ into my shoulder in a way that made me wonder what she was thinking and Grams sent me off with some cookies, a reminder to eat to build my strength back up, and a verbally conveyed invitation for Bree to come over before the ritual for a witchy get-together.

I nodded a little bewilderedly as I left and then, noting the time, made my way to the Salvatore Boarding House for the by-the-way-vampires-exist meeting.

Now that did not go anywhere nearly as smoothly, in no small part because I had to tell Jeremy that I was adopted and, after conferring with Damon and (mostly) Stefan, decided to tell him the slightly edited truth about Vicki. I say edited because not only did I omit Damon's part in it, but I emphasized and metaphorically underlined three times in red pen the bit where Vicki tried to kill us both because she was an addict and would have never gotten her blood lust under control. Jeremy took that so hard that he walked out; Jenna was simply in shock and didn't know what to say.

Damon, being the dick that he was, decided it was a great time to inform her that Logan Fell actually _was_ a vampire, though he omitted his role in that as well. That horrified her and got me into a spot of trouble-

"_You knew even then and you didn't tell me, Elena?"_

-but I managed to talk my way out of it with a few crocodile tears and admissions of teenage weakness. I managed to divert her by telling her that vampires were what the whole Gilbert Family Secret was, which I knew she'd been dying to know about.

That got a reaction, alright.

"You mean your dad _knew_ all about this?" Jenna demanded, her face pale.

I nodded.

"So does Uncle John," I informed her happily. "Also he's my biological father."

There was something strangely nice about being able to drop bombshells like that that were normal. Jeremy, who had come back just in time to catch me saying that, was stopped in his tracks in disbelief. Whatever he had been planning to say, which I very much hoped wasn't about Anna or me having him compelled, was forgotten as he repeated Uncle John's name just once in a kind of stupefied daze.

I took that opportunity to ask him if he wouldn't take a walk with me, because I wouldn't be Elena, I decided almost viciously, I wouldn't leave him to find things out on his own and I sure as hell wouldn't dodge the responsibility of telling him I had him compelled.

That was mine to shoulder, and my good deed had gone unpunished long enough.

I told him that I had him compelled, very briefly said it was because I couldn't bear to see him in pain, and told him it was wrong of me use compulsion to make him forget, to influence his emotions. It was very wrong of me, I told him, and I didn't expect him to forgive me but I wanted to be the one to tell him now that he knew the truth.

"You do know I remember talking to you that night, right?" He asked at last, after a few minutes of gnawing silence. "You asked me if I wanted it, and I said yes."

"You do?" I asked, startled, and then shook my head. "It doesn't matter, Jeremy. Don't feel like you have to cut me any slack because I asked you. It's not your fault. It's mine."

"You explained what you could without telling me the truth," he argued, shrugging. "So it's just as much my fault as it is yours. I…I don't know if I would have said no even if I knew what you were going to do. I…Vicki was…"

He trailed off with another shrug, his voice gruff with barely restrained emotion.

"Jer…?" I questioned, and was surprised by how vulnerable I sounded.

It was as if he was really my brother, I realized, once again surprised with myself. I was worried about ruining our relationship, which was so tentative in the face of my admission of having foreign memories. (I had gone for total disclosure in my speech). It had been bad enough enduring the funny looks I'd gotten when I'd first arrived every time I opened my mouth and my accent bled through Elena's natural pronunciation. They could sense there was something off about me, but they'd decided not to comment in fear of sending me back into depression over my parents.

I couldn't bear it if they looked at me that way again and it wasn't just a passing glance, if the people I had come to love as my own looked at me like I was the foreign parasite that I suppose I technically was…I would _die_.

He answered me by putting his arms around me as though he were the elder sibling and I the wronged, hurting one.

"We're alright, Elena," he muttered softly, so softly that the words were ours and ours alone, that no vampire could intrude on our moment with supernatural senses.

And you know what? In that moment, at least, we really were.

We talked for a bit longer, though what we said I shan't disclose because to me that conversation was something achingly precious to me, the first time Jeremy and I truly came together as siblings without the ghosts of Elena or my brothers between us. He spoke to me, called me Lena because he understood as well as was possible that I wasn't his Elena, and I spoke to him without thinking of my brothers, without seeing their faces in his expressions, and…it was good. It was simple and good and I knew that it was the start of truly being family, him and I. He was my brother, after that, as much as he was Elena's, as much as my own brothers in my world were. And I was his sister, too.

Alaric's quest for vengeance on Damon was so easily taken care of that when Stefan told me how his talk with my beloved history teacher went, I actually nearly spewed my tea all over the table. Fortunately, I managed to swallow and thus saved a number of biscuits painstakingly chosen at the import shop, but I digress.

Stefan had gone to speak with Alaric while I spoke with Anna. I decided on splitting us up like that because Damon still needed me to round up the witches for him at that point in time, so he wouldn't leave me defenceless against Anna. If Stefan went to talk to Alaric, and Damon was resolved to ensure my continued existence and thus not leave my side until he was sure Anna wasn't going to rip my throat out, then Damon would not be in a position to go with Stefan and ruin things with his charming personality.

It was surprising, almost, how reasonable Alaric could be when not being taunted by Damon. Stefan was polite and understanding as he told Alaric what he knew about Isobel, and Alaric, though obviously not happy with the news, conceded that if that were true, he didn't have much of a case against Damon and agreed to halt his revenge until he had proof that Stefan wasn't bullshitting him to save his brother.

Steffy didn't think that was too much to ask for, and neither did I, because I was sure Isobel would turn up eventually, no matter what events I changed now. And if she didn't, at least I knew where to start in terms of tracking her down, not to mention I was fairly sure at this point that Uncle John would be able to contact her, and he was a phone call away. As soon as the tomb crap was taken care of, I resolved at the time, I'll see what I can do about proving that Isobel is alive for Alaric.

I was too involved in my current schemes to give too much thought to it, and I wanted to be sure that if I were to go to all the trouble of bringing her here, that it wouldn't cause problems for me on the sacrifice front. As far as I remembered, after all, Isobel actually wanted to protect her daughter. Somehow, I had a feeling that she wouldn't take very kindly to me practically gift-wrapping myself for Klaus.

Speaking of Klaus, however…

I had been sitting at my desk in my room, sketching like a lunatic. I couldn't sleep, even after the long night we'd had at the boarding house, telling Jenna and Jeremy the truth. I couldn't sleep, so instead I tried to commit 'Prince Hal's' features to paper. He was my next mystery to solve; he knew me, I was sure of it.

His face was only half done and unlikely to ever be done when the pay-as-you-go phone I had faithfully lugged around with me since Damon had given it to me started ringing on my desk beside me.

I froze for a split second in startled disbelief and then dropped my fountain pen, splattering ink all over Hal's face as I lunged for it, and-

"Hello?" I answered, hardly able to believe that the phone had actually rung. Silence reigned for what seemed like a small eternity, for long enough, at least, that I began to wonder if I wasn't simply delusional from lack of sleep.

"_For someone who seems to want to contact me so very desperately, you__'__ve taken great care to ensure that I would not be able to find you.__"_

My breath caught in my throat as I pressed the phone even closer to my ear.

"I have the doppelganger," I said, and I could all but feel him stiffen on the other end of the line. "Actually," I corrected, "I am the doppelganger, and I want to help you break the curse."

A beat of silence passed.

"_You__'__re lying,__"_he accused in a vicious snarl.

"I'm not." I responded simply. "And if I am, when we meet, you can kill me. There's something you don't know about the curse that you need to know before you break it."

"_I don__'__t know who you are or what you think you know of such things, love,__"_he threatened pronouncedly, holding on to his tone of false calm so tenuously that I felt a sliver of fear cut into my heart. "_But I promise that if you are lying or trying to play some sort of game with me, you will regret it.__"_

"No lies, no games. You need to take my life to unlock your werewolf side, I want to not be permanently killed because your mother was a psychotic bitch who cursed you at her husband's bequest to sweep her affair under the rug. You want to be able to make hybrids, don't you?"

I could hear his angry breathing, faint and stuttering, as if he were trying to wrestle himself under control.

"We need to talk, in person." I told him. "I'll call you when it's time, so don't change your number, yeah?"

There was a sharp intake of breath that indicated he was about to let that simmering rage loose as it boiled over, and I decided to stay on the line much longer would be foolish.

"I promise you, Klaus, you will be free when this is all over, and you will have your hybrids. I've seen it. And I will do whatever I must to help you reach that point."

My finger rested lightly on the end call button, but I couldn't leave it at that.

"I would say 'always and forever,' but that's not my life expectancy. So, between us, let it be 'until the very end.' I look forward to finally meeting you-"

Click.

Needless to say, I didn't sleep a wink after that, instead hurriedly removing the phone's sim card and cutting it in half with a pair of scissors as soon as I'd hung up, then writing out a copy of the number he had called from on the corner of my ruined sketch of Hal just in case. I turned the phone off and shut it in a drawer with its charger to wait until I might need it again and spent the next few ours alternating between girlish triumph and bouts of sudden, panicked regret.

My ploy had worked! All the centuries Klaus spent searching for his precious doppelganger, only to find her in a lonely hearts advertisement in the _Daily Telegraph_?

I had been too bold, I fretted anxiously, oh God, why on earth had I been as bold as that? But it worked! Ha! If only I'd been able to see the look on his face! No, no, it was a very serious thing for him and I shouldn't have made light of it the way I did.

…But his _face_!

It was a thought that would stay with me for several days, that same mixture of dread and amusement pervading even such solemn moments such as when Bree, Bonnie, and Grams began working their 'witchy juju' in front of the tomb. I had drifted off in the middle of tense greetings and explanations, wondering, briefly, how he'd been informed. Did some arse-kissers bring him clippings of the advert in hopes of getting in his good graces? Did he stumble it upon himself?

"It is done," Bonnie's grandmother announced in a powerful tone of ringing authority that didn't half freak me out. "Free the ones you mean to free and take care of the rest."

It's hard not to pay attention when Grams is speaking in her I-am-a-Bennett-witch-you-ignorant-fool-I-could-end-you-with-a-thought voice. Fortunately, her words weren't meant for me but rather for Anna, Damon, and Stefan, who were in charge of rescuing Pearl and Harper, confirming the lack of Katherine, and staking the other vampires respectively.

Damon was supposed to help Stefan, but I wasn't all that sure he'd be feeling up to it once he had concrete proof that I'd been truthful. He still believed that Katherine was in there. Would still believe it until he saw for himself that she wasn't.

So it fell to Stefan since Anna would be busy nursing her mother and Harper back to health with blood bags, and I was regrettably not about to make him do it himself. No. It wouldn't be fair.

"Wait for me, Stefano," I called cheerily, false lightness doing something, at least, to disguise the intense anxiety that had gotten a hell of a hold on me. "I'm not going in there by myself. Place is terrifying."

My joking fell flat.

"What?" He asked, startled. "No, Lena, that's a terrible idea. Damon and I will take care of it. Just wait here where it's safe."

As great an idea as that sounded, I was determined to share the burden so to speak. In all honesty, if it had been Damon, I would have sat back and let him do all the work without a care in the world. Damon was what he was and didn't bother about it.

Stefan, on the other hand…he'd find a way to feel guilty. If I helped, he wouldn't be able to make himself out to be the bad guy without incriminating me too, and I liked to think we were friends enough that he wouldn't do that. I mean, I was willing to go into a tomb of fucking vampires that had terrified the shit out of me even on a television screen simply because I didn't want him to feel guilty for killing defenceless people.

"It's fine," I assured him, and cracked a little smile. "You'll be there with me, won't you? We'll get things done quicker this way."

His mouth pulled back into the barest of grins at my insistence and he nodded, motioning me forward with a charming sort of old-fashioned gentility that I didn't doubt came from his human life. It was all very 'after you, miss,' in a way that, considering the situation, was hilarious and almost enough to take my mind off my fear.

Almost.

I couldn't say later on how long it actually took to stake the desiccated tomb vampires, but it felt like an eternity. The air was staggeringly heavy, musty and charged with that strange sort of supernatural sense that the corpses on the ground _were aware of me_. They were aware, in the vaguest possible sense, and even as weak as they were after over a century of starvation, their hunger for my blood was overpowering.

_You're sensitive to it, Lena_. _To death._

I stopped in my tracks, stake in the air as the voice that had been calling me spoke again, sounding stronger than I had ever heard it though it spoke in a hushed, almost knowing whisper. I waited, tense, wanting to call it, to embrace it if that was what it would take, (Grams' words weighed heavily in my mind), because I was desperate to hear it again.

It was silent, though, which frustrated me so much that I brought the stake down in frightened, spiteful rage and moved on the next vampire. Sensitive to death? What the hell did that even mean? I understood as much as that the supposed sensitivity I had was the reason why my stomach was churning and my instincts screeched for me to _run_, because I couldn't remember Elena being as frightened on the show, but…

Well, it didn't matter. I would keep the words in mind as I kept my encounter with 'Hal' in mind, stored away in the back of my mind after being given due consideration until the time came that further information was available. I had killed one of the twelve vampires that were my share; Stefan was already through four. Five, now, as I deliberated.

There was work to be done, I thought, and pushed the voice and its words from my mind. I could worry about that later. First, the vampires. Tomorrow, my long-awaited talk with Anna and Pearl. After that, I'd definitely meet up with Bonnie and her Grams and Bree. I was looking forward to seeing Bree, anyway, she'd seemed nice enough when we met and we parted in such a terrible manner. It would be nice to remedy that.

When I was done, Stefan was already back and dousing the absolutely, one-hundred percent dead vampires with gasoline. He nodded at me, perhaps a little tensely, and I took that as my dismissal and resisted the urge to sprint out of the tomb.

Stefan hadn't wanted me to help him. He hadn't wanted me to help him because he didn't think I should be burdened with the taking of a life, of more lives, really, since I'd staked the one that hurt Bonnie. He wanted to coddle me and take that all onto himself. Well, I wasn't the fragile teenage girl Elena was. I had killed a vampire already, and though I was no Van Helsing, I was no Mina Murray either. I could share in the burden of the supernatural world. It was only fair, after all, since I was the mill stone hanging from the collective necks of my friends, dragging them down into supernatural mire because I was a bloody doppelganger.

Er, no. Because _Elena_ was a doppelganger, I corrected myself, suddenly a little unsettled. Elena is the mill stone. _Elena_. I'm…oh, I'm the miller, working the mill stone to grind wheat into figurative flour. I'm not Elena. I'm not her. I'm Lena. I'm-

It was a terrible sound that broke my state of panic, so bitingly, chillingly real that I thought something had gone horribly, horribly wrong and werewolves were in Mystic Falls far earlier than they should have been. It was the sound of something howling.

"Bonnie, you have to control it!"

I stood stock still as the fire Stefan had lit to burn the bodies of the dead flared and all but exploded out of the tomb in a storm of flame. I stood frozen in place even as someone dragged me back a few feet to indubitable safety. And even then, I stared into empty space, beads of sweat trickling down my forehead as the howl reverberated in my brain long after it had been silenced.

"Lena, you have to tell her to stop," a calm, placating voice commanded, fingers brushing over my shoulder as lightly as air. "Tell her to stop, child, before she kills herself and takes all of us with her."

"You heard it, didn't you? The dog? The wolf?" I asked, stuttering as though I were on the verge of passing out from hypothermia. "The howling?"

"Lena," Grams ordered stiffly, oh yes, Grams was there wasn't she? That was who was talking. But…where was Bonnie?

I glanced around briefly and started when I saw Bonnie clutching at her head, blood dripping down her nose as an inferno raged around her. Bree had thrown out a hand and was trying to force the flames down to little avail, and Grams had abandoned all attempt at controlling them in favour of getting me to stop her, stop Bonnie from losing it.

"Stop it!" I shouted, and was almost surprised to be able to hear myself over the panic. "Bonnie, you have to stop it! You'll die!"

She did.

It was as if a violent wind had burst out of the tomb, extinguishing the fire first at the source and then swallowing up every lick of flame that had spread beyond it. There was terrible light and then startlingly peaceful darkness all at once. And then, in the dark, the quiet thump of a body hitting the ground.

"Bonnie!" I cried, abruptly shocked back to myself in concern, all thoughts of the howling gone. "Oh God, Bonnie, are you alright?"

She wasn't alright, she had heard it too and she and I were the only ones that had. Bonnie had been inextricably tied to me somehow, linked through me to the spirit that haunted me, that I strongly suspected brought me here. Learning the truth, from that moment on, was no longer an option.

Bonnie's life hung in the balance, and that was something I would not gamble with.

_To be continued in Taking Control._


End file.
